Creativity is Something Other People Do

A post by P.T. Phronk,
of Forest City Pulp fame

There’s a tendency to think of art as something others do. Art is mysterious; it comes from a magical place. It’s not like going to a day job and pumping out widgets or code or happy customers—all the things you and your ordinary friends do, all the things we do.

Maybe that’s why it’s slightly uncomfortable when good friends create good things. When watching a friend’s band, or play, or art show, it may be objectively fantastic, but that can’t be right, because fantastic acts of creation shouldn’t come from a real person you’ve known for years. They should come from an other.

We’ve even invented the concept of a muse: an other—real or imaginary—who provides the source of artistic inspiration. No way, it couldn’t be a regular person’s brain coming up with this stuff. It must originate somewhere else.

It’s all bullshit, of course. Art is a result of regular brains and regular hands put to hard work. But the belief persists, for some reason.

I try to be aware of this. As a writer, and a writer of horror, the most uncomfortable art of all, I am conscious of how strange it can be for people around me. Self promotion is a challenge, partially for that reason. I’d almost prefer to stand up on a stage and talk about my writing to a crowd of strangers—to whom I am an other—than to answer a friend asking what are you working on now?

So buy my books, stranger.

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I'm busy and took the lazy way out for this month's post. Creativity is Something Other People Do was originally posted, in slightly different form, on Phronk.com.

5 Archenemies of Writers

The archenemy is a critical character in many fictional stories. Most often they are defeated in the end, but not until they give the hero a good sound kick in the ass a few times. In addition, the hero usually has to survive a vigorous test to their moral character to gain the ability to conquer their archenemy. Well, I’m here to tell you that our fictional characters are not the only ones who are subjected to the evil ways of an archenemy. We writers have some difficult ones to overcome ourselves.

Sally Squirrel

Little Sally Squirrel seems too cute and tiny to cause any real trouble, but that’s why her weapon of distraction is so effective at taking down writers. We don’t see her coming, and once we do catch sight of her, we simply smile and say, ‘Aw, she’s so cute.’ Next thing we know—POOF—we’ve been sucked into her tornado of distraction and missed our window of hitting our daily word count. It’s difficult to battle Sally since she can morph into many forms: social media, kids, pets, non-writer responsibilities, and on and on and on . . .

Time Swift

Please note that Time Swift should not be confused with Taylor Swift. While Taylor can spin a wicked pop tune, Time wickedly spins the hands of time. When we begin our new project, that deadline (whether official or self-imposed) seems obtainable. We have plenty of time to reach it, so we go to bed intending to start fresh the next day. Only once we awake it’s as though time has disappeared and we’re scrambling to get everything done in time. Seconds pass quickly to hours to weeks to months, and we’re sitting here staring at the start of the next NaNoWriMo like WTF?!?

Professor Imposter

“What makes you think you can write?”

“You call that a novel? {insert sinister laugh}”

“My five year old has better grammar than you.”

“Please, step out of the way and let the real writers go past.”

These are just a few of the sweet nothings Professor Imposter likes to whisper in our ears. Her only objective is to make us believe we are not worthy of the title ‘writer’. She’s a professor, after all, so she would know. Right?

The F-Bombinator

This archenemy throws F-bombs that are more devastating than the one that rhymes with truck. I’m talking about that evil 7 letter word: Failure. The F-Bombinator tosses out the failure bombs more rapidly than a batting cage stuck in hyperdrive. The bombs hit their target, and we’re convinced we’re going to fail. We won’t get that manuscript done in time. We’ll never hit the publish button or get an agent. We’ll never sell any books. We’ll never be as good as author-fancy-pants. We try to regain control, but mostly all we can do is sit back and watch all our writerly hopes go up in flames—BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! It should also be noted that The F-Bombinator is even more effective after we’ve gone a few rounds with Professor Imposter.

Mr. Rainmaker

Mr. Rainmaker is difficult to defeat as he can possess the body of anyone around you. He’s that reviewer who craps all over your book. He’s your family member who wants to know why it’s taking you so long to write your book. He’s the many agents/publishers who shoot you down before you can even say, “Hi, my name is—” He’s the editor who just doesn’t get your vision. Even on a perfectly sunny day, Mr. Rainmaker is there, bringing you down by raining on your happy parade.

So how do we stay strong and continue to defeat all of these archenemies?

The first two, Sally Squirrel and Time Swift, require diligence and organization. Put Sally in a cage and only let her out at pre-scheduled times. Time is best defeated with obtainable goals that we keep visible.

Professor Imposter, The F-Bombinator, and Mr. Rainmaker require a different strategy. Luckily, it can be done in three easy steps:

1. dig deep
2. grab the hilt of your self-worth sword
3. swing with all your might

Simple, right?

If you feel you’ve lost your self-worth sword, or don’t feel strong enough to unsheathe it, then it’s time to turn to your side-kick. Every good superhero has someone who can back them up, so should every superwriter. They can help you find your self-worth sword, or even lend you theirs in desperate times. If you don’t have a side-kick, let me know and I’ll be happy to stand by you!

~Carrie

How do you deal with Writer ADD?

A post by Mary Fan

I have a major case of Writer ADD… that is, I can’t decide what to work on next. While I’ve always

had multiple ideas kicking around my head at once, I can usually hunker down long enough to finish one first draft before starting another.

This time’s different. I’m finally getting back into my writing groove, but it’s as if all the books I didn’t write during my slump are demanding to be written at once. Originally, I was going to work on the experimental magical realism book I’ve been plotting forever (a few pages of which I shared on this blog for a CRITEEK!). Maybe it’s just because this one’s hard to write, or maybe it’s because I’m not confident I can make it what I want it to be, or maybe it’s because I’m fairly sure it’ll never be marketable, and the mercenary side of myself is asking why I’m bothering… whatever the case, a clawing, pestering part of me keeps demanding that I work on something different, even though I’m already several chapters into the first draft.

I finally caved and decided to give a second WIP a go, just to see what would happen. Since I kept hitting walls on WIP 1, I figured starting WIP 2 in the meanwhile couldn’t hurt. WIP 2 is much more my usual speed… YA sci-fi, though a bit different from what I usually write in that it’s less adventure-y and more contemplative… more the Interstellar kind of space story than the Star Wars kind. Since the tone’s so different from what I’m accustomed to writing, I’m once again hitting a wall.

I’ve never been afraid to switch up styles before—in fact, I like never writing the same book twice—but I feel like I’ve wandered further outside my comfort zone than usual with both these WIPs. That’s probably a good thing in the long run… after all, trying new things is the only way we grow. But I’m not entirely sure if now’s the right time… after all, it took me months to feel like writing again (like, want-to-sit-down-everyday-and-eagerly-bang-out-words writing, rather than beat-words-out-of-myself writing). Maybe now’s not the best time to be challenging myself… part of me just wants to write a just-for-fun book. Something easy that practically writes itself.

Which brings me to potential WIP 3... an idea that hit me completely out-of-the-blue. I don’t have any concrete outlines or notes for it yet… all I know is that it’ll be about a warrior girl in a cursed kingdom who gets to fight monsters of some kind and enjoy a fluffy romance that ultimately leads to happily-ever-afters all around. In other words, I want to write a Disney movie of a book.

Great. That’s three potential WIPs right there. I worry that I’ll start #3, only to get five chapters in and decide I want to work on something else entirely. I’m hoping that brainstorming it will help get it out of my system for now, so I can at least finish something. But who knows…  I’m seriously considering rolling a die to pick a WIP, and then sticking it out until the bitter end, however it turns out.

Does Writer ADD ever get to you? And if so, how do you deal with it?

Turning my Summer Hiatus into a Writing Oasis

Since I left my ‘day job’ three years ago, I’ve done most of my writing in the hours that my daughter is at school. Spending time with her is my priority, so I have from the time I shower after the gym in the morning until the bus rolls back by in the afternoon. Well, my daughter officially has three days left in this school year. That means time for me will be nearly nonexistent. In previous summers, she was in gymnastics 9 hours a week. While that didn’t give me much time to write, it did give me time to get the grocery shopping done and all those other errands she deemed too boring to (willingly) participate in. She’s decided to leave competitive gymnastics, so now I don’t even have that time to adult.

I think I need a new plan. One that will transform my summer from a hiatus into an oasis.

Theoretically, I could write while she’s home. She’s old enough to entertain herself and even make herself lunch on occasion. But her idea of entertainment is constantly streaming episodes on Netflix and gorging out on candy. That means I actually have to plan things for us to do if I don’t want her to turn into a zombie strung out on sugar. And there is the whole thing about me actually wanting to spend time with her. I mean, in three years she’ll be a teenager and won’t want me around anymore. I need to take advantage while I can!

The past few years my writing basically stopped over the summer, with the exception of a few blog posts. It worked out OK since was able to get my books published before summer arrived. This is the first summer since I decided to remain home full-time where I’m working on a novel. I can’t afford to take an entire summer off writing.

I decided the best approach would be to find ways to integrate some important aspects of my writing life with my mommy life.

Reading

Any author will tell you how important reading is when it comes to improving our craft. I love to read, and thankfully so does my daughter. This summer, we decided to do a buddy read instead of only reading books from our individual shelves. Our plan is to read The Chronicles of Narnia together. I’ve actually never read the series, so I’m super excited to finally make the time for them. I also can’t wait to finally have a chance to discuss books with my daughter.

Inspiration

I’m actually writing the perfect book to have my daughter help me find inspiration for various parts of the story. It’s about a teenage boy who’s angry for various reasons, but mainly because his parents got divorced. He meets a girl one day when he climbs a tree, and she helps him see his situation from a different perspective. My daughter and I have already made plans to take walks/hikes this summer to look at trees and take pictures. There’s also a little girl in the story who loves sprites (fairies, pixies, and other mythical creatures). I’m hoping my daughter can help me research some facts about sprites and maybe even help me imagine how the little girl’s fairy garden would look. Finally, the grandfather in my novel owns a roller skating rink. Just this weekend my daughter attended a birthday party at the skating rink here in town. Had I not taken her, I never would have been inspired to add in the ‘dancing skater’ :) Looks like I need to take her a few more times over the summer. Maybe even put a pair of skates on my feet again. It’s been at least 20 years since I skated—hopefully it’s just like riding a bike!

Writing

I know I will need to do some actual writing this summer. My daughter’s computer sits right behind mine, and she is also working on a story. This means we can have a few hours a week dedicated to writing together. I also let her choose the music we listen to, so that’s an added bonus on her end. Of course, when we do this I don’t get much writing done since she is always sharing her Google Doc with me so I can see the five new sentences she added—but it’s still fun! And I love that she enjoys writing as much as I do.

Promotion

I hate to admit that I slacked a bit on promotion last year. I know it’s an important aspect of my writing, but I had a lot of other things going on at the time and something had to give a bit. Regardless of my poor excuses (I’m a marketing gal after all, I should know better), I have vowed to start doing better again this year. I have this idea of doing some sort of photo puzzle promotion where I will take a zoomed in section of a picture that has something to do with my new book. I’ll then post that to social media and have people guess what it might be. I don’t plan to run it until I get a little farther along so I can build up interest near launch time, but it will take some time and effort to plan so I want to get started. My daughter can help me select (or take) the photos and then help me crop them for the promotion.

I’m hoping other ways to include my daughter in my writing life will pop up over the summer, but for now I have a plan I’m pretty excited about.

One of my guest blog posts for indieBRAG at the end of the summer is a recap of a 30-day photo project. I decided to make the photo project about how I incorporate all these elements into my time with my daughter this summer. I plan to post them on my Instagram account, so you can follow me there if you want to check in on our progress!

How do you all incorporate your writing into the other aspects of your life?

~Carrie

The Writing Slump

For those of you who don’t know, I’m turning the big 3-0 this year. I’m being a little bit cliche and have made a list of 30 things to do before (ish) my birthday in June. One of these things is to write. It’s been at least two years since I’ve really sat down and written anything for my personal enjoyment. So I decided to challenge myself to write a short story. It doesn’t have to “end” at a short story but I’d like to hit that mark starting off.

It’s been six months since I made this resolution. I’m an expert at procrastination so I will share some of my “excuses” with you in the hopes that you, dear readers and fellow bloggers, can help me overcome them.

1) I write for a living. Every day from 9 to 6 I am writing for a marketing company (about automobiles). So by the end of the day the last thing I want to do is boot up my laptop and put my fingers back to the keys.

2) I need to read. I read so much and have such a large TBR pile that writing consistently gets pushed to the back burner in the search for the next best story.

3) I’m overwhelmed. I have possibly 3 different stories in my head and don’t know which one to start with or really where to start.

4) I’m critical of myself. I’ve always been my own worst critic and in the case of writing that mentality usually stops me before I even start.

So, here’s my call for help. Help!!! I need some guidance from my peers on this one. Where does your drive come from? How do you discipline yourself? Where does your inspiration come from? Any tips, tricks, suggestions will be helpful and welcome! Thanks in advance.

The problem with self-imposed deadlines is they're self-imposed

I think the headline of this blog post says it all, don't you?

If you don't know me, then you wouldn't know I am a procrastinator. When I was a kid, my mom used to plunk my butt down in a chair to work on a book report for a book I hadn't read -- that was due the next day.

Well, now I'm an adult who indie publishes and it's like I'm nine years old again, sitting at the dining room table at 7pm, overwhelmed, cranky and trying to skim a paperback novel in order to write a cohesive summary. Except, that I'm the author of the book and it's not finished yet (Is this metaphor working? I can't tell).

Anyhoo, I gave myself a deadline of July 1st and guess what? Mama's not done. It's the middle of September and my mystery novel is still being drafted. I was so confident that I would meet my self-imposed deadline this summer that I contracted my cover art early (although, that was smart thinking) and put a deposit down on my editor. Meanwhile, I have several more scenes to write, edits to make, beta readers to hit up, and revisions to tackle before the editor even sees the damn thing. When I look at a calendar, I don't see time leisurely spread out before me. I see minutes and days ticking away and I'm still not finished.

See that deadline, Kim? *whoosh* You missed it.

Indie authors need to be disciplined. There is no big publisher breathing down our necks to finish our work. No agent to whip us into shape. If we don't write and publish, we don't make money. There are lessons to be learned here and I am learning them.
 
1. Set a reasonable goal. With a toddler at home, it's not easy for me to always hit those daily word counts. So aim for 1k words a day. Totally manageable.

2. Have a detailed story plan. The reason I'm struggling now is because I veered from my outline and changed the plot. A detailed outline is my best friend and makes for quick drafts. I need the outline finalized before I venture on.

3. Remove distractions. Translation: Get off the freakin' internet. Specifically: Facebook.

4. Carve out time. I sit down to write when my daughter is napping. It's sacred time. I do nothing else. No laundry. No dishes. No phone calls. I just write.

5. Hold myself accountable. Or have my husband use guilt as a way to hurry things along. "The longer it takes you to finish your book, the longer it takes to earn money for the family." Well played, dear.

So there ya have it. My next book will go a lot smoother -- hopefully.

How do you stay focused on your writing projects? Do you hit your deadlines?

-KGG

Dammit, Jim! I'm a writer, not a [marketer/webmaster/accountant...]

Hang around any writer's forum long enough and you'll be sure to run into a few people griping about

A post by Mary Fan

how they miss the good old days, when writers were expected to, you know, write, and someone else took care of the rest. Personally, I think the "good old days" are basically a fairy tale... you know, a "once upon a time" that never actually happened. One thing's for sure, though. If you want to be an author in 2015, you've got to do way more than just write books.

It's a tiring and frustrating thing sometimes, and one day, when I was feeling especially frazzled, I decided to procrastinate on all the things I was supposed to be doing by making a graphic that sums up what it feels like... Behold, the fruits of my procrastination...

I had more but they wouldn't fit.

A writer's Groundhog Day

Today is Groundhog Day! Hopefully, a NYC mayor won't drop you on your head, but I make no promises.

I'm so glad it's February. It's just one day closer to March, April and 60 degree temps. I have a 12-inch snow pack outside my door and more snow is on its way.  Needless to say, the KGG household has been crunky lately. My kids don't like the cold (they opt not to go outside and play in the snow) and we miss school. Anyhoo... what was I saying?

Oh! Groundhog Day. Yeah. So I bet many of you love the Bill Murray movie of the same name, where Bill Murray's character relives the same day over and over again. But each day, he makes better decisions until it's the perfect day (or something like that; it's been awhile since I've seen the movie). As an author, I feel like everyday is Groundhog Day. I sit at my computer, look at the same manuscript, try to make headway, and feel like I'm never moving forward. But that's not entirely true. In time, my word count increases. My plot strengthens. My characters materialize. Even if most days, I feel like I'm just trudging through the same headaches.

I'm still working on my novella. Why a 30K word manuscript is giving me such a headache, I do not know. Maybe because it's set in 1955 and I'm not as confident in the 50s setting as I was with 1996. I wrote a 19K word draft that is terrible and the rewrite is proving to be an equal struggle. But, I know that I'm a better editor than writer. Once the plot is solidified, the tweaks to language and characterization will improve. I bet my author friends feel like it's Groundhog Day because I keep bemoaning the project every-damn-day to them. "Enough, Kim. We get it."

So chin up, fair writers. This winter shall pass. This day shall pass. This manuscript will get done.  One bite of elephant at a time.

Happy Groundhog Day! Don't let this dreadful winter and your manuscript cast a shadow over your ambitions.

-KGG