Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Family And Ideas

Posted: May 11, 2013 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
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The second post I wish to finish tonight (assuming SNL doesn’t distract me too much) was inspired by both my dad and my friend and author Pat Bertram (you can read her blog here). I was talking to my father earlier this evening and we had an interesting conversation. He walked into the living room while I was sprawled out on the couch reading a graphic novel and told me he still had his mother’s phone number, the number belonging to my Savta, may her memory be blessed, in his phone even though she died several years ago.

(Savta, for those of you who don’t know, is Hebrew for “grandmother”, and is what I called my paternal grandmother from the time I was young.)

At first I thought he was going to ask me for advice about whether or not to erase the number. But then he asked me what would happen if he called that number…and Savta actually picked up the phone.

I grasped the idea pretty quickly that my father, ever supportive of my dream to become a horror writer, was trying to give me an idea for a short story. I also figured out pretty quickly that my dad had given me an excellent idea for a short story…but Stephen King had already done a similar idea. Well, when I told my dad that, he looked a little disappointed, to the point of crestfallen. I wasn’t sure if he was sad that King had gotten there first or that I had rejected his idea for a short story. Whatever the case though, I tried to let him know I wasn’t rejecting his idea or that it was useless. On the contrary, even if I couldn’t write a story based entirely off of that idea, it was likely to appear in a short story or a novel of mine someday. The idea of the dead picking up the phone would probably swim around in my subconscious for a while before finding itself in a story I could actually use. In fact as I was talking about it, I realized there was a story that the dead calling would work perfectly in and told him so.

Of course, being me I told him in a way like this: “Oh, that could go in that story…yeah, definitely there…uh-huh…definitely could work there.” That and the hand motions I used probably confused my dad and made him want to move the conversation in another direction. But even if I can’t use his idea for a short story, it’ll still probably appear somewhere else, and that would mean my dad contributed something to my creative process.

My friend Pat Bertram recently did a post where she remarked how some writers will give up time with their families to devote to their writing, and how she advised doing the exact opposite of that. Speaking from personal experience, Pat said that she found every moment she spent with her late husband important and stimulating and a boost to her writing (and I am so sorry if I am misquoting you in any way, shape, or form Pat).

It’s moments like the one illustrated above that makes me agree with Pat. Family and friends, whether or not they drive you up the wall, are important and you should spend as much time as you can with them. Because when you make it as a writer, you want these people to be behind you and support you. And in cases like this, they really give you some awesome ideas to incorporate into your work.

Many Ideas On My Mind

Posted: May 11, 2013 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
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This is the first of two posts I plan to write this evening. This one was inspired by my younger sister, who asked me how many stories I’d thought about in my head yesterday as I was helping prepare dinner. Now I’ve mentioned my Ideas list on this blog before, a document on my flash drive that contains a little over fifty different ideas for novels, movies, TV shows, mangas, and even a video game. I keep this list because my memory is amazing on some things but remarkably poor on others (but doesn’t everyone have that problem?). However at various times throughout each day I’m thinking about one or more of these stories and trying to work out various plot points and scenes, even if I won’t write these stories for a long while.

I answered my sister truthfully, “About three or four.” One of them was my science fiction novel Reborn City, which is in its final draft and less than ten chapters away from completion (thank you, Matthew Williams, for your diligence on this project). The other, my thriller Snake, is in the middle of its third draft, and when I had the chance yesterday, I was able to edit a few more chapters. The other two was a possible novel about an assassin with multiple personalities, and a story influenced partially by Sleeping Beauty (by the way, I call stories I write based off of fairy tales and other well-known stories, of which I have many ideas for, “Fractured Fairy Tales Untold”. Catchy title. A prize goes to the first person who gets where I got the title for this category from).

Anyway, my sister’s latest dream of what she’ll do when she’s an adult is to write, though I think she’s more into fantasy and I’m not sure how deep her devotion is or if this is just one of those passing fancies all kids seem to go through, even during the teen years. She claims she has twenty ideas going through her head each day, which I take to be exaggeration and possibly the hubris all starting writers have when they find they can string a few sentences together to make the bare bones of a story. But the conversation got me thinking, and I’ve been wanting to write this post since then, because there are a lot of writers out there who have a ton of ideas running through their heads and I think it’s a good topic to explore.

Every writer wants to be known for something they’ve written. Some have just the one work and want that to be well known, while others want to be prolific and have lots of famous stories. I think the former dream of just publishing their manuscript, while the latter dream of being the next Stephen King or Ernest Hemingway or Ezra Pound. I also believe the latter tend to have many different ideas brewing at any one time in their head. After all, if they want to be known for a large body of work, they have to have a lot of it in their heads already, right? These authors are always working on something, and they often spend great amounts of time just working on a story, whether by writing or by daydreaming. Not to mention, they also have new ideas coming into their heads, so when they do get a new idea they may spend hours, days, weeks, months, or sometimes years plotting and planning before they start to write it.

Of course, with so much in their head, it’s doubtful they’ll run out of ideas at any point. Or more precisely, it’s in doubt that they’ll finish even a tenth of all the work they’d like to do. I personally view this to my advantage, as it means that I’ll have multiple objects every time I start a new project. Should I start the next volume of a series? Should I work on a new series? How about a stand-alone? Which one? A Fractured Fairy Tale Untold? A psychological thriller? Something with the potential of a sequel should it do well? A science fiction novel with thought-provoking social themes? The options are endless!

Other writers may not have the same view of having many ideas as I do. They may think its better just to focus on the one idea, or perhaps they try to write as much as possible so they can get as much out as they can while they’re still breathing. Or, if your name is James Patterson and you have tons of money on hand, you hire co-writers to work with you so you can get out nine books a year (yes, I’m still a little sore over this, though I thought Alex Cross, Run was one of the better books in the series lately). It’s different for every author.

But like I said, I like having multiple ideas to focus on at any one time. It gives me something to do, and I think as time goes on, like wine, these stories get better with age. And even if I don’t write everything on that Ideas list, even if every manga isn’t serialized, every movie made or every TV show has a pilot filmed, I can still say that I gave it my all while I was writing and that’s enough for me.

Do you have multiple ideas in your noggin? What’s your view on having all these ideas?

Masterpieces: A Flash Fiction Story

Posted: May 9, 2013 in Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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I just got word from a magazine devoted to flash fiction horror that they do not want to publish my flash fiction piece. I’m sad, but I don’t hold it against them. In the meantime, I think my short short story, entitled “Masterpieces”, is creepy and full of potential, so I thought I’d publish it on my blog here. And since it’s less than 600 words, you can read it in one sitting and not have to waste any precious time during your lunch break or whatever.

So without further ado, I present “Masterpieces”. Tell me what you think when you’re done reading it…if you’re not huddled in a ball in fear.

(more…)

The Usefulness of Literary Analysis

Posted: May 9, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I recently read a blog post (you can read it here) where the author commented on the attitudes some people have toward different academic studies. According to the author, fields of study like physics, mathematics, and biology–fields collectively known as “hard sciences” and based on reasoning and mathematical proofs–as more important and more factually true than the study of literature, which is seen as “soft” and therefore variable, indefinite, and downright false.

Now I admit that those who study literature (and those who create it) aren’t solving the mysteries of the universe, curing cancer, or creating alternative forms of energy. And I admit that you can look at a novel, poem, play or short story and draw many different meanings from the author’s comparison of blue curtains to the blue sky. And yes, fiction is, by definition, outright falsehoods. There’s no Hogwarts, the zombies aren’t coming for us, and in all likelihood Dante never visited all three realms of the afterlife.

But I don’t think that the English major is inferior to physics or chemistry or engineering. Far from it. I believe the English major fulfills a different role than the hard sciences. Fields like elementary neuroscience and evolutionary biology and botany seek to understand the physical world around us. Literature and English majors, on the other hand, seek to understand the human condition, to understand our collective soul. We’re focusing on a whole other dimension of existence, multi-layered and able to bring understanding and meaning to the lives of others. We make metaphor of life, turn it into art, show our darkest fears and our deepest desires in the struggles of characters brought to life through letters and words.

Isn’t that worthwhile in itself? To make people understand through a story not only themselves but the world around them? To feel empathy for a character, joy when they triumph and sadness when they struggle, because that character reminds a reader of themselves or what they want to be? I think it is, especially since reading and writing bring so much fulfillment to me and to the people I know who feel the same way I do.

Besides, the hard sciences may be solving mysteries and doing important work, but there is something that they lack, and that is the ability to identify with and inspire the masses. The theory of relativity will never be able to define an age like The Great Gatsby did, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle will never have the same effect on our youth like Harry Potter did.

Sure, you can argue that the space race defined the sixties and seventies and that the Internet and technology defines us now. But let me remind you that those age-defining technologies were first dreamed about in a literature course or on a writer’s desk while his pen rolled across a page. From cell phones to space ships to the Roomba, all were first talked about and made awesome and terrible by some writer somewhere (especially if that writer’s name is Isaac Asimov).

And yet even today’s technology is influencing literature. Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress was as much inspired by the Internet as the blog and the webisode were. Several science fiction writers are now writing works on how social media and hacking are becoming a total part of our society and reflecting on that. And I wouldn’t do some of my best writing without technology.

So these fields aren’t competing with each other for superiority or totally exclusive. On the contrary, they merely handle different fields of our existence and feed each other occasionally. It’s like the relationship between bees and flowers: the bees get their food from the flowers and spread the pollen around so that the flowers can create new seeds. In this sense, they are helping each other grow.

So deride my English major anytime. I may not be solving some mysterious aspect about black holes or quarks, but I might just give you an idea someday on how to solve that mystery. And you may never be able to write your own homage to Edgar Allen Poe, but your work on cancer research or molecular genetics may give me or a friend some new idea for a future bestseller. It could happen.

What’s your take on this subject?

Snake: Understanding Why They Did That

Posted: May 7, 2013 in Novel, Writing
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I’ve been meaning to write this post for two days, but Sunday was nuts, and Monday wasn’t much better (though I did see Iron Man 3). In any case, I wanted to talk about something I noticed while working on Chapter 47 of Snake. In that chapter, the Snake gains an unlikely ally, and she goes out of her way to help him escape from the police. As I was looking over the chapter, I was puzzled by some of the things I was reading. I couldn’t figure out why I had written a character doing or acting a certain way, so I had to go back and explain in detail why the character had taken that action. As I did this, I realized something: this wasn’t the first time I’d done this.

I have this bad habit sometimes with my writing. I’ll forget that unlike me, my readers don’t know everything about the story or the characters. So what makes sense to me won’t make sense to the readers because they don’t know the same things I know. What’s worse is I sometimes do this with my characters as well: I’ll have my characters think about what a character did or is doing right now, not realizing that I hadn’t planned on revealing that until later, so it’s weird that the character should know that.

I’m sure this has happened to all writers, but it’s still embarrassing  for me (and I’m sure for many others) when it happens. In fact, while writing this post I realized another moment in that same chapter that I have to fix up because of one of these instances occurs there and I totally didn’t realize it until just now. I hate having to admit it, but it’s true, so as soon as possible I’ll get into that chapter and fix that little problem up.

I guess the important thing is not to let these moments bog you down or make you think you’re a terrible writer. Just go back, fix it up, and try to keep these instances in mind so you don’t repeat them in the future. That’s what I’m going to do, anyway.

Has this ever happened to you? How do you feel about it?

Spring Semester 2013 Wrap-Up Report

Posted: May 3, 2013 in Living and Life, Progress Report
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It’s been a while since I’ve had anything to really write about, but I have something now. While I moved out of the dorms on Tuesday afternoon, I did not recieve my final grades till just now, so I’m writing this post now which some of you may have been eagerly anticipating. Others of you may also care less, but I hope you read this post anyway.

So anyway, a whole semester went by a little too fast if you ask me, but I did very well. I got a 3.3 GPA, an improvement by 0.1 from last semester. I didn’t get all the As I wanted, but I’ll work for that this coming semester. I did very well in Creative Writing with an A and American Literature with an A-. I also met some really awesome professors and learned a whole bunch.

I also worked hard on finishing up The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones and I’m now waiting for the copyright. Also, thanks to my friend Matthew Williams, Reborn City is close to having its final draft finished, and Snake is getting its 3rd draft. I’m a busy guy, but with all this effort I’m putting in, I should have RC out by the holidays and Snake by summer 2014 (hopefully).

In the meantime, I’m going to be working in the financial aid office at Ohio State like I did last summer, and I’ll be writing when I have the chance. Plus I’ll probably be seeing plenty of movies and reading a lot of books, so expect reviews. And let’s not forget I’ll hopefully be getting a Kindle, so if you want me to read your books, better start bribing me now.

So here’s to the start of summer. Let’s hope it all goes well.

Snake: Adding Depth To My Characters

Posted: April 29, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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I’ve always wanted a snake in a basket. Yes I’m strange, but you already know that, right?

I’ve been busy lately. Exams, preparing for two summer jobs, and a recent addiction to Doctor Who, plus all my normal writing and editing obligations. I’ve been one busy guy, but I wanted to take a break to share with everyone how the editing job for the third draft of Snake is coming along, especially since the main aim of this draft was to add more depth and history to some of my characters.

So far, mission accomplished. I’m about halfway through the draft, I’ve written one of the two new chapters I meant to write, and I’ve gone into some depth into the characters’ personalities and history. I’ve definitely had some fun working on Allison, my heroine, exploring where she got her feisty attitude and seeing how it’s been affected by her ordeal. At the same time, I’m still searching for the right place to insert some more back story between my killer and the heroine, because there’s a lot there that I need to add in for the relationship to make sense.

Oh well, I have 54 chapters to go. I should be able to figure something out and insert those parts (and for those of you with your mouths open right now because I said 54 chapters, don’t worry because most don’t make it past five pages). And by adding all this character history, the characters become more real, their actions make more sense, and their struggles make them that much more endearing.

Except in the case of the killer. In that respect, you find the Snake more creepy and fascinating at the same time. At least that’s my take on him. He’s changed so much from when I first created him. He’s definitely not the same character I created back in June last year.

Well, there you have it. I’m going to hopefully do some more work on Snake tonight, but first I’m going to grab some dinner. Can’t edit on an empty stomach, am I right?

 

An Update On Pending Works

Posted: April 25, 2013 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, short story, Writing
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As most of you are aware, I have three works of fiction on their way to publication, and at various stages of that progress. Since there has been significant progress made in all three works on their roads to publication recently, I thought I’d give you all an update of each work, in the order they’ll most likely be published in. So here we go:

The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones
The last time my collection of short stories came up in a post, I think I’d sent it to the copyright office so that I could sue anyone who used it without permission after publication. Getting a copyright through the US Copyright Office takes about two and one-half months, so I’m about a month and one-half of the way through the wait. When I do get the copyright, I plan to do a month-long countdown, and then upload The Quiet Game onto Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, and other sites. It’ll be available for about $1.29, which is about the same as an iTunes song, but better because you get five short stories in one neat little package.
If you want to like the Facebook page for The Quiet Game, you can follow this link:

https://www.facebook.com/TheQuietGameFiveTalesToChillYourBones

And if you want to watch my home-made trailer for The Quiet Game, please watch the video below.

Reborn City
As I’ve mentioned before, my friend Matt Williams (author of the phenomenal novel Whiskey Delta, now available on Amazon) is critiquing each chapter of RC and giving me feedback. Just yesterday in fact, Matt sent me Ch. 17, leave less than ten chapters left. After I’ve finished editing the entire novel based on Matt’s evaluation, I plan on creating a cover, a Facebook page, and a trailer, just like I did for The Quiet Game. Plus of course the whole copyright process will be repeated for RC.
And for those of you who don’t know what RC is about, it’s the first novel in a trilogy taking place several years in the future and follows a street gang whose leaders have strange abilities and their strange connection with a shadowy military company. I hope it’ll gain an audience, especially given some of the themes in the story.

Snake
My thriller novel about a serial killer hunting members of a certain New York mafia family is in the middle of a third draft, the point of which is to go into deeper character development and character history for the main characters. Once that’s done, I’ll probably put it through one more draft before I get ready to copyright it and publish it. And by the way, I think this novel is some of the scariest work I’ve ever done, and also some of the best.

I hope your interests are piqued by what you’ve read here today. I hope to publish The Quiet Game  soon and to have RC ready soon, so wish me luck and keep reading the blog for updates. Thanks and I’ll write another post later. I’ve got an errand to take care of.

Critiquing For A Friend

Posted: April 24, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, short story, Writing
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I saw a friend of mine yesterday at the library a little after 2pm. He and I began talking about finals (the topic de jeur during this last week of the semester) and he mentioned that he had to write a short story for his history class based on some of the stuff he’s been learning in class. I offered to look at his short story and critique it if he wanted, to which he said he’d send it over.

This evening I took a look at it and I wrote a quick critique of it before e-mailing my friend. After I finished and sent the email, I thought to myself, Hey, that’s the first time I critiqued something for a friend that wasn’t required by a class of mine. I don’t count that one time my sister asked me to look at her speech as she was running for a position on the board of the youth group we both belonged to in high school, mostly because we couldn’t get past the opening without her disagreeing about my assessment of the opening. God, that was a long time ago.

“This blog post is perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever read online. Now your friend’s short story…”

Okay, enough rambling. Back on topic:

I’ve been in two workshop classes in the past year, and I had to do a similar assignment to what my friend did when I took a world history course my first year in college. I’ve looked at a lot of short stories, occasionally had to look stuff up just to understand what a certain word meant or what the action revolved around, and written close to fifty critiques for each story. I’ve seen bad short stories, I’ve read ones that absolutely floored me with their first drafts, and I’ve read one or two that confused me so bad that I mentioned how confused I was in the critique letter.

But writing for a friend…it’s an entirely different experience. You want to give them the best critique possible. You want to tell them their story has potential. You want to say they did a great job. You want to tell them it’s only a matter of time before they’re selling books in bookstores and receiving royalty checks. But at the same time, you have to point out flaws, you have to say that they should possibly rewrite the whole thing, and sometimes you have to tell your friend that, for one reason or another, the story stunk to high heaven and you absolutely hated it. It’s a very different experience than critiquing for classmates you don’t know that well, and finding a balance between kind to your friends and critical of the work is tough, especially if you’re sensitive to a friend’s feelings or there’s a chance that they may say their work is too high-brow and those who don’t like it or understand it are literary fools.

Luckily my friend doesn’t aspire to literary stardom and even if he did, he’s a chill dude who doesn’t get emotional over critiques. But still, I took his feelings into account when I critiqued his work, and I hope he appreciates the critique and isn’t daunted or upset by what I had to say. (For the record I wrote a very positive critique and suggested that he rewrite the story from the POV of the sheriff character and do more showing and less telling) It was the first time I understood what my friend Matt goes through every time he looks at a chapter of Reborn City for me and tells me what he thinks, and what my friends and family go through when they review my work for me, and it’s a pretty crazy feeling.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever do a critique like this ever again, though I’m sure I might be asked in the future to look at someone else’s work, especially if it’s for class. If I am asked by a friend to look at his work though, I hope I’ll be able to do a serviceable critique that will help them with their work and with their writing over time. Because if there’s one thing writers can do for each other, especially indie writers, it’s help to make each other’s work better and make sure they reach wider audiences.

What do you think when you get your work critiqued or someone critiques your work?

When Is Collaboration In Writing Bad?

Posted: April 23, 2013 in Novel, Reflections, Writing
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This is a rather unique question, and one that came up very unexpectedly for me. You see, I heard from some friends and teachers–all published writers as well–that James Patterson, author of the famous Alex Cross books and a few YA books whose names I tend to forget–that Patterson uses ghost writers to help get all his work done, which is how he’s able to publish 9 books a year. At first, I didn’t want to believe it, but then I did some research and sure enough, I found a NYT article about this “collaboration”. And it broke my heart.

Should he work alone or should he work with ghost-writers? Most would say “no”.

Now, collaboration isn’t always a bad thing. Technically speaking, my friend Matt looking at Reborn City is a collaboration. Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson wrote a children’s reimagining of Peter Pan together, and it is certainly not a “technical” collaboration. And who can forget the legendary meeting of the pens of Stephen King and Peter Straub?

But those were collaborations that everyone knew about, everyone agreed to, and the fans were fine with. Most fans are still unaware of these Patterson collaborations, who he’s working with, and he gets all the credit. And it explains why the last couple of Alex Cross books haven’t been exactly up to par.

And we, the fans, are the ones who hurt the most. After all, we expect that the writing is original and from the author. And it’s…not. It’s a ghost-writing collaboration that is making the rounds on the Internet and that nobody really wants. We feel a little betrayed. And yet I still want to read his work, with hope that Patterson will someday return to writing on his own and doing what he does best, even if it means he’s not putting out nine blockbusters a year.

I’m not sure why Patterson does this–though I think money has something to do with it–but I hope that he cuts it out soon. It’s not what the fans want, it’s hurting the quality of his work, and honestly, if I were him I wouldn’t want this. I wouldn’t want to be working with several different ghost-writers and spending less time on the actual work just so I can be prolific and get a ton of money in. I mean, I plan to be prolific, but I plan to be prolific on my own, not with the help of other writers. Why can’t Patterson do the same?

What’s your take on these collaborations? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

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