‘Mimi Does NaNoWriMo’
Image source: InkyGirl at http://inkygirl.com/wwfc/2011/11/9/mimi-does-nanowrimo.html
Image source: Jorge Chan at http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1733
Today I’ll be talking about my two favourite web comics that provide inspiration or commiseration for writers – yay! And how to keep going when you feel like giving up (“halfway through NaNoWriMo” blues, anyone?).
No matter what genre you’re writing in, you’ll want to be reading other stories in your genre.
Something I’ve wanted to write about for some time is what a writer can learn about writing in their genre from reading one of the oldest books ever written – the Bible.
The truth is, it has so much to teach storytellers like us.
Yes, I know, reading the Bible isn’t terribly easy going. But if you treat it as one big collection of short stories, then you can read a little chunk at a time and not be overwhelmed by trying to read it as a single epic tale.
Storytime with Josh
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/storytimewithjosh
One of my esteemed friends, Josh Bartlett has a wonderful YouTube channel, Storytime with Josh, where he features regular videos of dramatically-narrated Bible stories. This guy has a real flair for bringing out the real life drama of these stories – some that you might have heard many times, and some that even well-versed Bible readers will find surprising.
Storytellers should always be looking for the human side in stories. Many characters in stories never get their side of the story heard, or their point of view is always sidelined because the main hero’s actions are seen as more important. But the truth is that every character has an interesting story, even if it’s only about how the hero’s actions affected them and how they responded to that.
A guide to where you can find all the genres in the Bible:
Did you know this is a real thing? Woah!
Image source: WeirdPhobia.com
I recently interviewed for a position at a great publishing house (the dream job – ah!).
As the head editors were interviewing me, at one point, they said:
“So, it says here that you are also a writer?”
“Yes, absolutely; I’ve been writing since I could hold a pen. My first words were literally, ‘Book’ and ‘Read’. I wrote my first ‘book’ when I was four years old. ‘The Adventures of Freddy Fish’.”
“Wow!” said one.
“How do you do that?” asked the other.
I was surprised. “Um, I just love writing. It’s why I became an editor at all; I love reading and writing and I just want to make stories better wherever I can.”
“Wow,” said the first again. “I don’t think I could write anything anymore. Probably ever.”
“I haven’t read a book for fun in years, let alone written one.”
“Yeah, I mean, you’re reading other peoples’ writing all day, it just gets… It would be completely intimidating now to try and write something of my own. Because I know what it’s like, who’s going to be reading what I write. I’m used to sitting on this side of the desk now.”
“I don’t think I could take the rejection. Writers are very brave, I think.”
“Well, thank you,” I said.
And we moved on. Phew!
My point…
Editors are afraid to write because of their inner editors – just like normal writers. But we shouldn’t be, whether we’re a writer or an editor!
Image source: Kathy Coatney and Lisa Sorensen
via Jean Oram
via fellow blogger Jodie Llewellyn’s blog post
Whether you’re a writer or an editor, you should also be an editor and a writer. (Ooh, see what I did there?)
Writer, I really hope you’re self-editing your stuff before you show it around to people. Otherwise, I’m sorry, but you’re probably a really really poor writer. Sad face. 😦
And Editor, I really hope that you read and write as well. Otherwise, you just don’t know what it’s like for us writers. You don’t know what it took to get our babies – I mean, books – out of our heads and into the world, so you don’t treat our babies – books! (Wow, that keeps happening!) – as kindly as you could.
(Hey, if you could use the extra push, why not use NaNoWriMo to get you writing again this month? It’s fun!)
Editors in big firms and magazines don’t usually have time to write, I know, if you want to have any kind of home life and actually speak to your family once a day. You work long hours at the office and you don’t always get home for dinner. But J.K. Rowling was a waitress supporting her kids as a single mum when she wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, so not having enough time is not really a good excuse.
If you want to write, you don’t have time to write; you make time to write.
For more info, the Department of English at Florida Atlantic University pointed me to this great post, ‘Who edits the editors?’ by Mark Medley, which talks about famous editors who have become published authors. Cordite Poetry Review even published a poetry collection, Editorial Intervention, entirely made up of the poems written by poetry editors.
So, in summary, writers, take a deep breath and get to that self-editing; editors, be bold and get writing again. As the great Mark Twain once said:
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
Image source: Trent M Kays on Rhetorical Rumination
Writers, how do you get past your fear and start editing your own work? Editors, how do you get past your fear and start writing?
This post was written by TJ Withers-Ryan © 2014. Reblogging is highly encouraged as long as you credit me as the author.
Centennial Park, Sydney, before the rains hit
(Image Source: My camera)
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~ Anton Chekhov
The most challenging writing exercise I have been set to date is very simple:
Describe this scene. Right here, right now, where we are. Without using any clichés.
So, how do you describe a scene without it being a cliché? As Rory from Gilmore Girls complained in Season 4, “A ‘rain-soaked highway’ is not a cliché, it’s just how you describe a rain-soaked highway!” Well, I’ll give you a few tips, so you can use them next week when NaNoWriMo 2014 kicks off! Then I’ll show you some scenes descriptions I’ve recorded during this week’s visit to Sydney.
Image source: IWOM We know no limits (London)
“The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes but by no means always find the way to do it.” – John Steinbeck
Juni Desiree (Awrestlingwriter) is a prolific blogger I happily stumbled into this year. This week she kindly shared with us the link to one of her short stories, ‘Summer’, published in The Australia Times.
I loved it! Laughed. Nearly cried. Finished it feeling warm and fuzzy and re-balanced. Which is just what a short story should do.
And it is seriously short (700 words), which makes it a solid example of one particular structure for short fiction – the “whole narrative” told briefly – for young writers who are just starting out to follow.
Last month I was editing a short story for someone, and this month I’ll be writing a book review of one (I’ll post the link when it’s up), and so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the various purposes of short stories in general, and whether or not these and other stories have achieved those purposes.
“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” ― Anne Frank
Image Source: Scientific American
Do you need to be happy to be inspired? Or do you need to be a tortured artist in order to be inspired? It’s an age-old question, and there’s a growing body of science providing answers to it.
I’ve been studying a psychology unit through edX Berkeley online called GG101 ‘The Science of Happiness’, and the experimental studies that have been performed in this area of creativity-and-happiness have been fascinating.
Image source: Resource Freak
“I’m a very promiscuous reader; I believe we should take all kinds of genres to bed with us.” ― Lauren Beukes
Lauren Beukes
(pronounced something like “Beeyohkes”)
Image source: The Audio Bookstore
Today I went to my first Brisbane Writers Festival session and thoroughly enjoyed it! Lauren Beukes, South African author of science fiction and crime noir novels, says we should read everything we can get our hands on, no matter what genre we write for ourselves. Here’s why…
Go where you find inspiration, and go there often
My previous post was about the Art Gallery Museum and the intriguing characters I uncovered in the old portrait paintings there. Now let me tell you about the incredible animals I discovered, many for the first time, at the South Australian Museum.
The Mouflon, found in the Caucasus, northern and eastern Iraq, and northwestern Iran
Some of these guys really look like they should be in a fantasy or sci-fi novel, not in the real world. For that reason, I found these animals awakened in me again the desire to write fantasy, a genre I’ve spent many years in but often abandon for “more grown-up” genres like science fiction (haha) or drama.
I spent a few hours over three days walking through the ‘Mammals of the World’ taxidermy exhibit, because I just loved it the first day, but there was so much that I just felt I hadn’t taken it all in, needed another hit.
I was pacing back and forth behind the glass, getting a bit upset that these gorgeous things were dead, just carcasses posed for my viewing pleasure, and most of the living versions were endangered anyway, when it hit me. I wanted to write fantasy animals based on these real animals. Think about it – if I describe an animal to you just using the description, not labelling it by the name we know it, it would be harder for you to imagine, wouldn’t it? You might even think I was making it up.
My first mammal looks like some medieval fantasy writer got really tired of writing ad nauseum about wolves howling at the moon and running in packs and chasing our heroes through the woods, so he elongated the nose and tale of a fox and gave it giant ears, then shrunk it to cat size, and…
The Fennec Fox, found in the Sahara of North Africa
BAM! Fennec Fox. (Seriously, what’s with these adorable little guys? They’re so darn cute!)
Here are some of the other animals that inspired me:
Go where you find inspiration, and go there often
I’m in Adelaide this week, and while I’ll save my excessive raving about how beautiful it is for later, I have to tell you about where I went yesterday.
I went to the South Australian Museum and the Art Gallery.
Sounds a little boring, maybe, if you hate animals or history or art. But I have to tell you, I found myself absolutely, 100% inspired there – the most inspired, in fact, that I’ve felt in months.
This first post will be about the South Australian Art Gallery and the beautiful portraits I admired there; my second post will illuminate the incredible animals that I discovered at the Museum.
Ever just see someone on the street and their face just tells you a story that you want to write instantly? They’re such a clear picture of a character that you can imagine. Maybe they look like a character you’ve already begun writing, or maybe they’re one that you’ve never considered before. You can almost hear their voice in dialogue before they speak.
That’s what the art gallery was like for me. I wandered the halls snapping shots of nearly every portrait – faces old and young, faces wise and bewildered, faces engaged and closed-off.
Because of the age of the paintings, and the gorgeous fashions on display, I couldn’t help myself – suddenly I wanted to write a history novel again! Someone asked me just last week to look over their historical romance novel (fun!), so it’s been on my mind. I also wished I could have taken my dress-maker friend through the halls of the gallery, just to gaze at the fabrics and dream of ways to make modern dresses based on these opulent draperies.
Here are some of the faces that inspired me…
“You can fail at what you don’t want. So you may as well take a chance at doing what you love.”
Inspired words from an unlikely source!
Jim Carrey’s words in this commencement address to Maharishi University were inspired by his father’s life, but they ring true for so many of us.
Obviously we all have constraints on our time and resources, but we also have great ability to try to go after what we really want to do with our lives. And I want to write.
So today I entered a story, The Empress Road, in the State Library of Queensland’s Young Writers Award 2014 competition!
Fellow young writers! Will you join me?
Enter here:
For a sneak peek at The Empress Road, shoot me an email!
This post was written by TJ Withers-Ryan © 2014. Reblogging is highly encouraged as long as you credit me as the author.
TJ Withers 