It is awesome when you're writing and you get into a groove. Hours can fly by without you even realizing it. Of course, that is special to us because it is so rare. Usually, we write piece by piece and do a whole lot of staring. As such, there are a lot of things I don't worry about.
I don't worry about getting carpal tunnel syndrome. I don't worry about not using an ergonomic keyboard. I don't worry about repetitive stress issues. Simply put, I don't write fast enough or consistently enough to worry about those problems.
However, there are physical issues that shouldn't be ignored. For example, there is posture. I have never found a perfect chair for writing. When I'm at a desk, I am either sitting straight up or am hunching over. Either way, it is not very comfortable. I personally love to put my feet up and write with a keyboard or a notebook in my lap. The problem there is that it is impossible to write that way. I can either be comfortable or I can be functional, but I can't do both very well.
Even if I am not writing during a whole period of time, I'm usually sitting down the whole time. It's easy to forget how much stress that creates. If I'm hunching over, straightening my back helps, but I can still feel that I'm getting sore. If I stand up, do do some stretching, and take even a couple of minutes to do something else, it really refreshes the body.
Taking a break is also great for refreshing the mind. Sometimes we just get stuck. We think about the same things over and over again. We get bogged down by our own mind. Leaving your station, doing something else, thinking different thoughts, it clears up the fog. Once you get your gears turning again, you'll be able to pick right up when you sit down to write again.
If you write for an hour, take a break. Grab a drink, use the bathroom, or just stretch your body. If you're just staring into space anyway, you might as well do something while you're doing nothing. Breaks are good. They're good for the body and for the mind. Don't forget to take care of both.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
Creating Words
I love words. I love saying them, reading them, stringing them together, and even creating them. I think it's funny that we have phrases like "real words" and "made-up words" because all words are both made-up and real. Somebody had to say a word for the first time. At that point, they made it up. A word's meaning is whatever people agree it is, which means that whoever makes up a word usually gets to decide what it means.
As such, I love making up words. Not so much nonsensical words, but words that can be deciphered. A lot of our words can be deciphered if you know the code. Many of our words are simply roots with prefixes or suffixes on them. If you can learn these parts, you can make up tons of words.
For example, what is a photograph? You probably already know, but we can understand it by breaking down the word. 'Photo' means light. 'Graph' means picture. A photograph is a lightpicture, which is the process by which the picture is burned onto the film of a camera.
Now that you know that 'photo; means 'light', you can figure out other words like 'photosensitive' (sensitive to light) or 'photosynthesis' (creating with light). The same is true for 'graph', so you know that a 'polygraph' makes many pictures and a Spirograph is a picture made of spirals. Sometimes, it can be tricky. For example, 'graph' and also be 'gram'. A sonogram is a sound picture and a cardiogram is a heart picture.
Still, with enough parts in your mental library, you can start putting them together and playing with the results. Just using the ones we have here, imagine sonosynthesis. It would mean creating with sound. It may be a made-up word right now, but the concept is not impossible. 'Polysensitive' isn't in the dictionary, but if I used it in a sentence, you could understand that it means that something is sensitive to many things.
You can use this same process with more common constructions. When you add -y to the end of a word, you make it an adjective. Shine becomes shiny. Fat becomes fatty. We can also use -ish to make 'red' 'reddish' and 'punk' 'punkish'. But why stop there? You can make something 'computery' or 'froggish'.
Adding -tion makes something a noun. That's how we turn 'construct' into 'construction'. If we have the word 'hasten', the proper way to turn it into a noun is to say 'hastening'. But if I said 'hastenation', wouldn't you perfectly understand what I was talking about?
The English language has more words in it than any other language on earth. Part of that fact is that we have the luxury of creating words and modifying them to say anything we want. Half the beauty of words is making up the perfect one when it doesn't exist. Using existing words isn't bad to do, but it feels like playing in someone else's sandbox. I may be in the same box, but I'm at least going to add my own sand.
As such, I love making up words. Not so much nonsensical words, but words that can be deciphered. A lot of our words can be deciphered if you know the code. Many of our words are simply roots with prefixes or suffixes on them. If you can learn these parts, you can make up tons of words.
For example, what is a photograph? You probably already know, but we can understand it by breaking down the word. 'Photo' means light. 'Graph' means picture. A photograph is a lightpicture, which is the process by which the picture is burned onto the film of a camera.
Now that you know that 'photo; means 'light', you can figure out other words like 'photosensitive' (sensitive to light) or 'photosynthesis' (creating with light). The same is true for 'graph', so you know that a 'polygraph' makes many pictures and a Spirograph is a picture made of spirals. Sometimes, it can be tricky. For example, 'graph' and also be 'gram'. A sonogram is a sound picture and a cardiogram is a heart picture.
Still, with enough parts in your mental library, you can start putting them together and playing with the results. Just using the ones we have here, imagine sonosynthesis. It would mean creating with sound. It may be a made-up word right now, but the concept is not impossible. 'Polysensitive' isn't in the dictionary, but if I used it in a sentence, you could understand that it means that something is sensitive to many things.
You can use this same process with more common constructions. When you add -y to the end of a word, you make it an adjective. Shine becomes shiny. Fat becomes fatty. We can also use -ish to make 'red' 'reddish' and 'punk' 'punkish'. But why stop there? You can make something 'computery' or 'froggish'.
Adding -tion makes something a noun. That's how we turn 'construct' into 'construction'. If we have the word 'hasten', the proper way to turn it into a noun is to say 'hastening'. But if I said 'hastenation', wouldn't you perfectly understand what I was talking about?
The English language has more words in it than any other language on earth. Part of that fact is that we have the luxury of creating words and modifying them to say anything we want. Half the beauty of words is making up the perfect one when it doesn't exist. Using existing words isn't bad to do, but it feels like playing in someone else's sandbox. I may be in the same box, but I'm at least going to add my own sand.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Experimental Writing
In college, I took a class called Experiments in Creative Writing. The class was frustrating to me because I had one question which was never answered: Is our creative writing experimental for ourselves or for the world?
Every writer has a personal style and usually has an all-encompassing central idea that guides the majority of their writing. I, for example, prefer third person stories that deal with people or societies with conflicting ideals. As such, if I were to write an first-person autobiographical narrative, that would be a large experiment for me. However, that was what 90% of my classmates wrote for any creative writing assignment, so it would hardly look experimental to the teacher.
Doing "experimental creative writing" is different. If you want to do something that has never been done before, you have to know everything that's ever been done before. Every time I thought I came up with something new (i.e. something I've never seen before), it has already existed, and was at least talked about by some Greek guy who's been dead for a few thousand years.
This latter form of writing is usually a waste of time. Writing is an art form older than most things in human history. It has been explored and honed into the forms we have over millenia. They exist for a reason. It is hard enough trying to find something that has never been tried and can still be called writing. If you can find one of those things, I am highly doubtful the experiment will be successful. There's probably a good reason it's never been tried before.
Despite all of this, I definitely support experimenting with your own writing. For one thing, you can never know what you'll like or excel at until you try it. For another thing, it is very easy to get stuck in a rut and keep rewriting the same stories. It will be a welcome break for you (and perhaps your readers) to do something completely different.
Try something new. At the very worst, you'll hate it and throw it away. At the very best, you could find a new love that you are passionate about.
Every writer has a personal style and usually has an all-encompassing central idea that guides the majority of their writing. I, for example, prefer third person stories that deal with people or societies with conflicting ideals. As such, if I were to write an first-person autobiographical narrative, that would be a large experiment for me. However, that was what 90% of my classmates wrote for any creative writing assignment, so it would hardly look experimental to the teacher.
Doing "experimental creative writing" is different. If you want to do something that has never been done before, you have to know everything that's ever been done before. Every time I thought I came up with something new (i.e. something I've never seen before), it has already existed, and was at least talked about by some Greek guy who's been dead for a few thousand years.
This latter form of writing is usually a waste of time. Writing is an art form older than most things in human history. It has been explored and honed into the forms we have over millenia. They exist for a reason. It is hard enough trying to find something that has never been tried and can still be called writing. If you can find one of those things, I am highly doubtful the experiment will be successful. There's probably a good reason it's never been tried before.
Despite all of this, I definitely support experimenting with your own writing. For one thing, you can never know what you'll like or excel at until you try it. For another thing, it is very easy to get stuck in a rut and keep rewriting the same stories. It will be a welcome break for you (and perhaps your readers) to do something completely different.
Try something new. At the very worst, you'll hate it and throw it away. At the very best, you could find a new love that you are passionate about.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
A Novel A Year
When I talked about turning nuggets into ingots, I said that the best way to start a great work is to write a small amount. Shortly after that, one of my writer friends shared an interesting bit of advice she heard.
If you write one page every day, then you are writing 365 pages a year. That happens to equate to a medium-sized novel. This means that You can write a novel a year, even when keeping a fairly minimum writing schedule.
Now, in reality, there is more to a novel than the mere writing of it. At the very least, there is revising and editing to be done. And if you want that novel to be published, that is a whole process unto itself. But that's not really the point here.
The point is writing. A novel a year sounds like a tremendous feat. A page a day sounds pathetically simple. But they are the same thing. It may be easier to write 365 unrelated pages a year than it is to write a good novel, but that depends on you. For one thing, once your characters start taking charge and your story falls in place, you should find yourself getting ahead of schedule.
Try writing a page a day. It's a manageable minimum rate, leaves plenty of room to work ahead, but really adds up in a short time.
If you write one page every day, then you are writing 365 pages a year. That happens to equate to a medium-sized novel. This means that You can write a novel a year, even when keeping a fairly minimum writing schedule.
Now, in reality, there is more to a novel than the mere writing of it. At the very least, there is revising and editing to be done. And if you want that novel to be published, that is a whole process unto itself. But that's not really the point here.
The point is writing. A novel a year sounds like a tremendous feat. A page a day sounds pathetically simple. But they are the same thing. It may be easier to write 365 unrelated pages a year than it is to write a good novel, but that depends on you. For one thing, once your characters start taking charge and your story falls in place, you should find yourself getting ahead of schedule.
Try writing a page a day. It's a manageable minimum rate, leaves plenty of room to work ahead, but really adds up in a short time.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Writers Like Writers
One thing I notice is that people in a given field tend to date other people in their field. Doctors date doctors. Musicians date musicians. Being a writer, I find myself attracted to writers.
I think a big reason people date in their field is the proximity. When you spend so much of your life in a field, most of the people you know are in that field. You get to know them better than most other people, so it is more likely to click with one of them. Of course, writers don't go into an office or have writing coworkers (unless you are a journalist or technical writer), so that doesn't really explain why I would be interested in writers.
Another reason people date within a field is understanding. Both my parents are professional classical musicians. Orchestral musicians have completely abnormal schedules. They work afternoons and evenings. Their season is not a full year, so they supplement either with teaching private lessons or playing gigs with other groups. The short version is: musicians work when everybody else isn't. Nobody else can understand a musician's life like another musician, and that is moreso the case with me.
One of the reasons I chose writing is that I love words. I love saying them, analyzing them, and finding the perfect word to say exactly what I mean. That love of words came before writing; I didn't choose to write and then later decide to like words. And that is something most writers have in common. When another person shares a love of words, it is a very powerful point of connection. And when somebody has such an ability with words to say something powerful, whether it be hilarious, depressing, or anything else, it is a great point of attraction. Since I love words, I love anybody that can make great use of words.
It's understandable for writers to like other writers. Of course, it's perfectly possible to like somebody in a completely different field. But if you do that, it will help to realize that different fields have different lives, including things like schedules and interests. An accountant talking about work may be dull as hell to you, but you telling an accountant about revision may be the same thing in reverse.
I think a big reason people date in their field is the proximity. When you spend so much of your life in a field, most of the people you know are in that field. You get to know them better than most other people, so it is more likely to click with one of them. Of course, writers don't go into an office or have writing coworkers (unless you are a journalist or technical writer), so that doesn't really explain why I would be interested in writers.
Another reason people date within a field is understanding. Both my parents are professional classical musicians. Orchestral musicians have completely abnormal schedules. They work afternoons and evenings. Their season is not a full year, so they supplement either with teaching private lessons or playing gigs with other groups. The short version is: musicians work when everybody else isn't. Nobody else can understand a musician's life like another musician, and that is moreso the case with me.
One of the reasons I chose writing is that I love words. I love saying them, analyzing them, and finding the perfect word to say exactly what I mean. That love of words came before writing; I didn't choose to write and then later decide to like words. And that is something most writers have in common. When another person shares a love of words, it is a very powerful point of connection. And when somebody has such an ability with words to say something powerful, whether it be hilarious, depressing, or anything else, it is a great point of attraction. Since I love words, I love anybody that can make great use of words.
It's understandable for writers to like other writers. Of course, it's perfectly possible to like somebody in a completely different field. But if you do that, it will help to realize that different fields have different lives, including things like schedules and interests. An accountant talking about work may be dull as hell to you, but you telling an accountant about revision may be the same thing in reverse.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Turning Nuggets into Ingots
I had the thought today, What would I do if I had to give a two-hour speech about writing? My immediate reaction was, No problem. I've certainly written more than enough in my blog to cover that much time. But after that, it occurred to me that no one entry in my blog came even close to that length. They were closer to 10 minutes than 2 hours. They were nuggets.
There's nothing wrong with having nuggets of wisdom or insight or whatever you want to call it. The only problem is that they're small. A handful of nuggets is nice, but a solid ingot is far more impressive. I am so much more used to coming up with nuggets and sharing them, I wondered if I ever could do something larger. The theoretical speech seemed a lot more intimidating.
I kept thinking about this and I had a realization: Every level of writing above a sentence, from paragraphs onward, are simply a matter of grouping. The difference between a ten-minute speech and a two-hour speech is how much information you can cover. With 10 minutes, you can only give the most general information or you can go slightly in depth on a specific subject (e.g. you can talk vaguely about where ideas come from or you can specifically talk about word association as a method of creating ideas). With 2 hours, you could talk about what ideas are, how we treat them, how we make use of them, and cover several methods of coming up with ideas.
Then I thought about this blog again. These posts are rarely self-contained. I often link to previous entries that cover similar ground. One post will naturally lead me to a further post. If I wanted to cover a particular subject, I could find all of the posts I've made relating to that subject, reorganize them, and present them as a full unit.
So, it seems that you can't get an ingot without having a bunch of nuggets. What you need to do is gather all the nuggets of the same element, melt them down, and then carefully shape them into a single, solid unit. If you want to make a 2-hour speech, just deliver twelve 10-minute speeches on the same subject.
An important lesson is also here for writers who are afraid of big projects. A magnum opus starts with a single letter. Write something, no matter how small it is. Then write something else. Keep on doing that. Create as many nuggets as you can. Eventually, you will be able to turn them into the great work that you envision.
There's nothing wrong with having nuggets of wisdom or insight or whatever you want to call it. The only problem is that they're small. A handful of nuggets is nice, but a solid ingot is far more impressive. I am so much more used to coming up with nuggets and sharing them, I wondered if I ever could do something larger. The theoretical speech seemed a lot more intimidating.
I kept thinking about this and I had a realization: Every level of writing above a sentence, from paragraphs onward, are simply a matter of grouping. The difference between a ten-minute speech and a two-hour speech is how much information you can cover. With 10 minutes, you can only give the most general information or you can go slightly in depth on a specific subject (e.g. you can talk vaguely about where ideas come from or you can specifically talk about word association as a method of creating ideas). With 2 hours, you could talk about what ideas are, how we treat them, how we make use of them, and cover several methods of coming up with ideas.
Then I thought about this blog again. These posts are rarely self-contained. I often link to previous entries that cover similar ground. One post will naturally lead me to a further post. If I wanted to cover a particular subject, I could find all of the posts I've made relating to that subject, reorganize them, and present them as a full unit.
So, it seems that you can't get an ingot without having a bunch of nuggets. What you need to do is gather all the nuggets of the same element, melt them down, and then carefully shape them into a single, solid unit. If you want to make a 2-hour speech, just deliver twelve 10-minute speeches on the same subject.
An important lesson is also here for writers who are afraid of big projects. A magnum opus starts with a single letter. Write something, no matter how small it is. Then write something else. Keep on doing that. Create as many nuggets as you can. Eventually, you will be able to turn them into the great work that you envision.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
No Such Thing As Proof
Suppose you write a novel. Suppose you spend two years writing and editing it. You finally show it to publishers and none of them want it. Does that prove you're a bad writer? Does it prove that nobody cares about novels anymore? Does it prove that traditional publishing doesn't work anymore?
No. Of course not. It could be a fluke or it could just be bad luck. These questions seem silly to ask, but only if you're rational while listening to them. When you get rejected, all you can think are these negative thoughts. It's understandable, and it's ok to feel those feelings, but don't let them affect your actions. No matter how much evidence you have, you will never have proof.
If you send a poem to 30 literature magazines and you get rejected by all of them, that doesn't prove that your poem is bad. That doesn't prove that it will never get accepted. You could just as easily be accepted by the very next thing you send it to.
Conversely, if you write a play for the first time in your life and it is the most popular and beloved play people have ever seen, that doesn't prove that you will ever write another good play in your life.
Now, there are trends and patterns that you should be aware of. If you make the same mistakes in your writing over and over again, it is very likely that you will make them again unless you specifically try not to. If you have a reader thata always makes the same criticisms of your work, then it is likely that anything you show that reader will get the same response unless you specifically make something different. ut even those are not guaranteed.
On any given day, I go through several moods. I'm cranky in the morning, observant in the afternoon, jovial in the evening, and silly at night. Of course, that's not guaranteed either, since he events going on in my life can also change my mood. If you ask me to read something critically, nobody can guarantee what my reaction would be, even if I read the same essay twice.
So, largely, there's no such thing as proof. No matter what you think, you can never be sure of the future. But this is not something to be depressed about. This is great news. It means that no matter how much you struggle, there is always hope, always a chance that the next one might be the winner. It also means that you never have the luxury of resting on your laurels. Whether you do good or bad, you will always have to work harder and try to do better.
No. Of course not. It could be a fluke or it could just be bad luck. These questions seem silly to ask, but only if you're rational while listening to them. When you get rejected, all you can think are these negative thoughts. It's understandable, and it's ok to feel those feelings, but don't let them affect your actions. No matter how much evidence you have, you will never have proof.
If you send a poem to 30 literature magazines and you get rejected by all of them, that doesn't prove that your poem is bad. That doesn't prove that it will never get accepted. You could just as easily be accepted by the very next thing you send it to.
Conversely, if you write a play for the first time in your life and it is the most popular and beloved play people have ever seen, that doesn't prove that you will ever write another good play in your life.
Now, there are trends and patterns that you should be aware of. If you make the same mistakes in your writing over and over again, it is very likely that you will make them again unless you specifically try not to. If you have a reader thata always makes the same criticisms of your work, then it is likely that anything you show that reader will get the same response unless you specifically make something different. ut even those are not guaranteed.
On any given day, I go through several moods. I'm cranky in the morning, observant in the afternoon, jovial in the evening, and silly at night. Of course, that's not guaranteed either, since he events going on in my life can also change my mood. If you ask me to read something critically, nobody can guarantee what my reaction would be, even if I read the same essay twice.
So, largely, there's no such thing as proof. No matter what you think, you can never be sure of the future. But this is not something to be depressed about. This is great news. It means that no matter how much you struggle, there is always hope, always a chance that the next one might be the winner. It also means that you never have the luxury of resting on your laurels. Whether you do good or bad, you will always have to work harder and try to do better.
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