Category Archives: Fiction

Why not Transition to a Full-Time Writer?

Introduction

Recently, a colleague asked “Since you are so happy writing, shouldn’t you be doing it full time when you ever retire?”

I answered when that day ever arrives, I would consider it  but would not likely to do so. This seems like a great topic for a blog.

Why full-time writing is a better option:

A full-time writer in theory would have the following advantages:

  • Some feel that this makes their efforts more real and gives them a higher status.
  • They can dedicate more time to their works or produce more works in a shorter time period.
  • They can do a deeper research on a topic.
  • They can take advantage of various social and online resources that part-time writers cannot.
  • It may be more rewarding in other ways for a few of us.

Why part-time writing is a better option:

A part-time writer in theory would have the following advantages:

  • Writing is seen as special and not as a job.
  • A part-time writer can do pretty much a full-time writer can in terms of output, research, and using online resources. It just takes longer.
  • Writing in smaller time periods keeps things fresh.
  • They have more time to do other things.

The advantage and disadvantage of this choice are different for each person depending on economic circumstances, personality, desire to write, self-discipline, and writing topics covered. Also, what may be a clear path to choose one day may look like a bad selection the next.

So reflect on what will work best for you. Because writing is always a journey, an ongoing process, and never a single point in time.

How Writing with Patience Yields Rich Fruit and an Accidental Book!

Introduction

It has been several months since I have produced a blog. I was getting Missed Landing out the door, and started on what will be the second edition of Simply Business/IT and that is when I got into deep trouble.

The Trap of a Scarcity Viewpoint

I thought it would be nice to add a new short story about business leadership and pirating, It was to be called Command & Control. Write it in 2-3 weeks and all would be good. But the writing did not yield itself to a timely completion. A first draft from one character’s viewpoint was initiated. Then a second draft was rewritten from another character’s worldview. Things were looking dire. The self-imposed deadline was not going to be met. And there was much more still to write in this story.

The Trap of Impatience

So due to an imaginary deadline and pre-conceived notions of what this story should be like, an impatient mind might think they were in trouble and scrap the work completely. That is what would be the likely outcome for some writers. But I took a different approach and came from a viewpoint of abundance and patience. I decided to split the two efforts:

  1. Complete the editing of Simply Business/IT without the story. This should be published in a few weeks.
  2. Take as much time as needed to write Command and Control. By doing so, I decided to transform the story into a book, and did a third rewrite with a new opening and making each of the previous rewrites into separate chapters. It has been going swimmingly ever since. And an accidental book came forth.

So the Lessons Learned are:

  1. You never really know what journey a work will take you on.
  2. Patience and dropping of pre-conceived notions on outcome or schedule will yield better and stronger results. Just write and write some more without expectations.

What a great way to start 2016. Wishing you nothing but success on your writing journeys!

The Mother of all Writing Crises: Disruptive Fiction

Introduction

Recently, I rode on Amtrak recreating Edgar Allan Poe’s last trip northward. (As covered in Saving Eddie.) Amtrak has a Writer’s Residency. However, I like writing when the mood strikes without conditions.

As discussed earlier, I enjoy using a steno pad when writing in the air or traveling by rail, This time was no exception. What came forth was an over a four thousand word work called tentatively Waverly. The title is a nod to Sir Walter Scott’s Waverly novels which includes Ivanhoe.

Two Types of Disruptive Fiction

This new story became a case of disruptive fiction of which there are two kinds.

The first type is a work that is so unique that it immediately catches your attention. Q by the Wu Ming Writers’ Collective is one possible example.

But the more interesting area is fiction that disrupts your writing schedule.

Questions Concerning Disruptive Fiction

The following are some of the questions that Waverly brought to the surface and their resolution to date:

  1. What do I do with it? It is too short to be part of a book. I don’t have a new short story collection planned to place it. It could easily grow into a series of related stories. (Which would be a first for me.) So right now it is my experiments folder. There is a strong possibility that it is never released.
  2. Do I want to publish this now? There is too much that I am already working on such as finishing up Missed Landing and second edition updates to Simply Business/IT and Transitions 1.  (Each with one new story.) So the earliest that this would be published is 2016.
  3. How do I classify it? Is it a simple story, a political fable, a fictionalized guidebook for the ruling elite, science fiction, or something else? Again, I am not sure yet. With rewrites, it could be expanded and go into many different directions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, even if you think things are settled with your writing schedule, ideas may unexpectedly spring forth that may need exploring. Sometimes I put things on the side and other times I switch and make this a primary focus. The latter path includes Saving Eddie, Killing Thoreau, Ghosts vs. Robots, and now Missed Landing.

But that is my story and I am sticking to it. Which will YOU choose when a creative idea wants to disrupt your writing life?

How I Wrote my Way out of Trouble with Missed Landing.

Recently, I completed the first draft of Missed Landing. But it did not always look so certain that I would get there. I knew that Missed Landing was a different type of book. So it was a higher bar to overcome.

Several months back, I was approaching my draft success metric of ten thousand words. The results were far from good. I was experiencing a new form of the writer’s shanks. The writing was okay but it was missing something. Some other writer may had kept  going.  But I stopped, reflected, and knew that drastic changes needed to be made. So what did I do?

  1. Brainstorming. I thought of what I wanted to include in the story. This included seven different aspects that were all used eventually.
  2. Writing from scratch. I kept the existing chapters and started to write them over completely. Once done, I took the best of the old and new content which made a stronger story.
  3. Change the time frame. Doing the work as historical fiction was hampering progress. Making it in the science fiction genre gave more flexibility and made plot possibilities unlimited and more likely to happen.
  4. Make it more emotional. Capturing more what the characters were feeling instead of only experiencing made it a more powerful and memorable book.
  5. Kept going and never lost faith in the process and myself. I never stopped believing that there was good story to tell and just kept pushing myself and the writing.

As a result of the above, I came out with a stronger more satisfactory book. Never give up expressing yourself. Inspiration is just around the corner.

 

5 Ways your Children Can Help you Become a Better Writer.

Introduction
Though the many eons of the written word, there are many examples of authors writing stories for children they knew. This often included their own children and relatives. The world is indebted with some great literature as a result.

But there is a question that ends up as part of my “mental traffic” from time to time. That is does being a parent help make you a better writer? If so, is this is still true if you do not write children’s stories?

Based on my experience, I would say an emphatic YES!

Five Ways How Children Positively Impact your Writing.

Some of the reasons for saying this include the following.

1.You have a ready test audience. Reading stories out loud is a tremendous laboratory. Children’s reactions will let you know if a story is on target on not. Obviously, don’t inflict on them the first drafts , very adult stories, and other faux pas or they may never forgive you.

2. They want to hear new and some old stories. This is a great opportunity to push the creative juices to the fullest. It may initiate a chain of brainstorms that may result in something completely different.

3. You have to explain things simply and clearly. This means use of examples, humor, strong mental images, and more. Explaining things in many different ways helped tremendously in thinking how to describe a scene to my reader.

4. They can help characters come alive. Children are great in exploring situations in stories. Asking questions such as What if this character did … They also have a strong sense whether words spoken are true to a character or not.

5. You can determine quickly the needed images to create for a work. The scenes that get the greatest reaction likely need an illustration to go with the text.

All of the above helped in putting down in writing an always changing special bedtime story/meditation called “The Floating Bed” that is part of In Small Doses 2. It was a culmination of multiple night time renditions each a little longer and a little more detailed.

I would be interested I hearing how your “little reviewer(s)” helped your writing.

Eleven Ways Why Missed Landing is Different from my other Works

Introduction
I am in the process of wrapping up the first draft of Missed Landing. It ran into serious issues early on. (But that is a future blog topic.)

This completes a sort of “historical fiction trilogy” that started with Killing Thoreau on Walden Pond and followed by Saving Eddie. It is an enjoyable task to make the quirks and currents of history presentable.

Eleven Differences
This book is different than anything else that I’ve written. There are eleven major differences than my prior works. These include the following:

These differences include:

1) Timeframe. Although the work alludes to the past, it is set at some indefinite date in the future. (Originally it was to be 1940-1970s.)

2) Use of an unreliable and far from omniscient narrator. We clearly have a character here that has access to a vast but incomplete database. Also, she has memories of how rosy the past was. But how are false memories from tales from her mother and how much is real?

3) Life-defining issues. The lead character is grappling with overcoming loss, discerning what is truth and myth, and finding her place in the world. These are more mature themes than I have dealt with in the past.

4) Fake quotes. Each chapter starts with a snippet from an imaginary book that sets the mood.

5) Chapter titles that ask key questions. And the body of the chapter attempts to answer that query. And with each answer, we are closer to unraveling the truth.

6) Writing about a topic that I knew little about. Ballooning is an area that I haven’t delved into before so there was a lot to ramp up on. (Just like characters, the Calvez Brothers had to do.)

7) Most of the characters discussed in the book are deceased or presumed dead. And that makes it challenge for the protagonist to gather information. As the investigation gets underway, only one living character is interviewed.

8) The book uses an interesting mix of the future and visible signs of the obsolete past. Although everything is online, government offices, in-person tests and universities with physical campuses, and ballooning itself are also available if needed.

9) Ties to the late 1960s. The Gaul University protests and what happened to the Calvez brothers clearly has its antecedents with incidents of this turbulent time. This is discussed.

10) The use of triplet brothers as characters. Originally it was supposed to be twins but writing about the former was more.

11) Having a rich protagonist. The main character can purchase anything she needs except peace of mind. But she can obtain the needed tools that move her closer to reaching it.

My Favorite Chapter

As an author, here is a quick test to see how well that you identify with your own books. List what is your favorite chapter of each tome and why.

Like the rest of humankind, authors are judgmental and partial in their opinions. This includes being far from neutral on their own work. So one or more parts are liked better than others. This may be determined while writing, in the edit phase, or from a careful read after publication.

There may be various reasons for a chapter being a favorite. These include:

  • A self-contained part that shows the real mettle of the character overcoming a challenge. In the Olivia Plymouth Series this includes when she ran the Boston Marathon
    and her family had supportive signs throughout the run. There is also when she coordinates a fashion show in Africa and meets her favorite singer.
  • The techniques used in that collection of words. The story “Going Down with the Ship” in Small Doses 3 uses receipts as a key plot element.
  • The satisfaction of having something written down that matches closely to your original vision. In Missing Employees, the introduction to Inscrutable Consulting achieves this.
  • The thrill of completing the most challenging part of the book to write. In Transitions, “Gain and Loss” was a short but difficult part detailing how to achieve a vague goal.
  • Achieving the desired outcome of eliciting a certain emotion or reaction from a reader.
  • Those that open or close a book. In Saving Eddie, the short ending brings the whole book together like the poems of its subject Edgar Allan Poe.

    • Not every chapter can become a favorite. Those not making the grade typically are chapters that are:

    • a recap
    • setting up an action but not the action itself
    • side plots
    • characters doing something ordinary

    You get the idea.

    It is perfectly fine to have two or free favorite chapters per book. Sometimes decisions cannot be made.

    So the next time, you create a book, think which part that you like best and what says about you, your characters, and your work.

    Writing Where You Can

    To many, the lone writer performing his craft on the road is a romantic image. One can visualize them being the sole inhabitant in a smoke-filled room during the early morning hours. There the would-be author is typing furiously and asking frequently for more coffee or alcohol. When the sun finally rises, they nod in appreciation at the large pile of paper produced.

    But the reality in the digital age and being on a budget is far different. Space in the coach area on the plane is limited and very tight. The result may be unwanted disruptions or harsh commentary from your neighbors. And there are the challenges of keeping your presence of mind during a period of high turbulence. Trains are about the same. The good news is that you can plug in your computer as the wires dangle across your row occupant’s legs. The trains sway back and forth also making it an obstacle to type reasonably as well as keeping your lunch down. Having a table in first class or the café car is the closest one will get to an ideal environment to compose.

    The experience would be pretty much the same whether a laptop or tablet. Wireless connections used to access references may be unreliable or slow.

    I wrote an unpublished technical book for two years on the road in every spare moment I had between flights/trains. This included the always crowded airport charging stations, Amtrak first class lounges, and sitting on the carpet next to the rare outlet which loosely held a plug.

    It was all an adventure that resulted in dead computers, fragmented writing at times, and a constant sense of fighting the clock.

    With fiction writing, I am having more success going old school. A stenographer’s notebook and a pen take up little space regardless of the location. One can started right away at any altitude. There is no need to wait for a computer to boot up. There is no worry about disk failures. There is a stronger sense of accomplishment as the words fly and the pages get filled. Just bring a supply of fresh pens and make sure the notebook doesn’t get harmed or stolen. And the process of digitizing at a later date typically results in a stronger work.

    Some of the recent works done this way include “Illuminations of a Lighthouse Keeper” found in In Small Doses 2, part of the “Landing in Nippon” chapter in Olivia Plymouth #4 (Encounter at Tokaido Road) and a yet to be published story.

    In the end, we all have to choose a writing approach that works for each of us wherever we are. But sometimes the locality forces the choice on it. In any case, enjoy the process and make friends with your neighbor. After all, they could be a writer too.

    Conscious Failure: Using an Experimental Outlook with Writing.

    Introduction

    You can see from the accompanying image that failure is viewed traditionally as being unsuccessful, unfulfilling, and a lack of completion. It is time of emotional sorrow, of darkness, and of uncertainty. While it can be all that, it doesn’t have to be.

    Changing Your Outlook
    Instead of the above, have periods in your writing career that it is okay to “fail” on purpose. The focus should be as one childrens’ show once put it — “take chances, make mistakes, and get messy.” The mindset during this timeframe should be one or more of the following:

    • No expectations –What you create is fine. Just focus on generating output. There is lots of time later to let your mind enjoy the opportunity to judge. 🙂
    • No timeframes — Work from a mindset of just writing with no deadlines. Enjoy the ride and do not impose the shackles of scarcity on yourself.
    • No rules — Follow only minimum rules and guidelines. Encourage the mind to wander into flights of the imagination.
    • Take breaks when needed — Periodic breaks can provide insights that may otherwise be overlooked.
    • Put it aside — When it is done, put the writing aside. Revisit it after a period of time when you can truly look at it with fresh eyes and an open mind.
    • Try something different — Purposely try something different this time with your writing. Perhaps working in a park, creating in another language, and having a character very unlike those you typically do. etc.
    • Enjoy the “time off” — Periods like this are rare. So enjoy the dance of those moments.

      • If you take every work as a teacher and the outcome as a lesson to learn then no matter what happens, it cannot be viewed as a failure. By deliberately choosing times of no ground underneath, then you and your writing will both benefit from the experiences.