Tag: Writing

It Takes Time To Be a Writer

Happy Mothers Day, to all Mammas, Step Moms, Mother In Laws, and anyone who’s been a maternal influence.

We’ve been lied to, all of us aspiring writers. Oh, it was with the best of intentions, as most lies are. But it was a lie, all the same. We have been told that it doesn’t take nearly as much time as we all think to become a great writer. We have been told, over and over, if we can devote whatever spare minutes we have in a day, we will prevail. We will become writers.

Well, I shouldn’t say that it’s a total lie. Every good lie has a kernel of truth, after all. If you are just trying to become a writer, short stories work very well in small segments of time. Even novel length manuscripts can be written like that. Sure, it can, I’ve done it. Often my short stories are written between calls at my day job. I’ve said the same thing. If you are establishing a writing routine in your life, and all you have is maybe five minutes while your little one takes a nap, or 15 minutes on the bus to work, you slay that time! You make that story, because it’s better than nothing. Yes, you can write a whole book, minutes at a time. And if you’re writing, you’re a writer.

But I’ve learned better. if you intend to do something with your writing, then it’s going to take more than little sips of time. And everyone needs to stop telling this lie, because it’s hurting writers.

It doesn’t take into account editing

If you’ve never sat down, and edited a long piece of work, this might be something you’re not aware of, but you can’t just edit a page at a time and expect awesome results. For one thing, you’ve got to see your piece as a whole so you can find and patch plot holes. Usually, when I’m rough drafting I can’t remember half of what happened in part one by the time I get to part three. So if I put a gun on the mantle, I forgot that it needed to go off. It can also be frustrating as hell. You read a flawed paragraph, and you free write to fix it. Then you don’t get to write it until later. I know, when this has happened to me, I’ve forgotten my brilliant fix by that time. Generally I try to not edit unless I’ll have at least an hour to commit to the project.

It doesn’t take into account submitting

When you’re looking for an agent or editor to send your work to, prepare to spend a lot of time online. Don’t forget that before an agent accepts you, you have to accept them. Do they represent your genre? Have they had successful sales recently? What’s their standing on Predators and Editors? Then, there’s the query writing process, which should not be rushed. Again, this can take up to an hour, at least, if you’ve been doing it awhile.

It doesn’t take into account learning about the craft

If you’re a writer, you’ve also got to be a reader. Read books for pleasure, yes, but also to learn from them. Read articles to learn, listen to podcasts. This takes time, man, lots of time. Sure, you can dip into a book for five minutes or so, but if you intend to finish the book there had better be a lot of five minute increments built into you day.

Not just learning, but practicing. Free writing, trying to write from a different POV, learning poetry forms, all of this takes time. And if you short change your practice, you short change your writing career.

It doesn’t take into account marketing

I don’t spend as much time on marketing and self promotion as I should, most likely. I’m getting better at it, but there are so many things to do. I send my book to book review sights, pitch it on social media, run ad campaigns, and all the other crap I do to make sure people hear about my books. It takes time, and traditional writers have to do a lot of this too, your publisher won’t always do it for you. Most writers have websites or blogs they maintain, like myself. PBW accounts for about four hours a week, easy. You might say that marketing isn’t really writing, and you’re totally right. But how else will anyone hear about your book? Sure, word of mouth is great, but it’s hard to get that when no one has read it at all.

It doesn’t take into account all the insane little things like getting a bar code, compiling a story into a book, or the hours and hours you can spend designing a damned cover.

I spent nearly a week preparing Days to be published. Not a week full of five minutes here and there, a week of two to four hours at a time working. It required time, it required focus. It required my monsters to be in school. I then spent hours getting everything on the Gumroad and Tablo websites. It wasn’t hard work, but it was time consuming work, and certainly not something I could have done a little at a time.

It discourages us from making serious lifestyle changes that could allow for better, longer writing sessions.

Deciding to be a writer, not as a hobby but as a career, is a commitment. And the further you get into it, the more it will demand of your time. For me, that meant I had to cut some things out of my life to make room for it. I cut my addiction to time management games, I stopped reading as many comic books, I narrowed the time I spend watching tv. Once I started valuing my writing time, I stopped talking to some people that, quite frankly, it was better for me to not talk to. I still spend time with the people I value. Not as much as I’d like, but that’s because of time and work constraints.

Not only have I cut bad habits out of my life, I’ve added good ones. I commit to writing time in the morning before work. I bring my writing with me, and work on it whenever I have time.

I’m really glad that I did all of those things. Writing has brought fulfillment to my life in such a way that nothing else but my children ever did. I miss my comic books, but it’s worth it to me.

Another thing I want you to keep in mind is that while I might be able to commit to an hour, five minutes at a time, I probably won’t get as much writing done as if I sat down for a whole hour and wrote. I didn’t have to stop and start so many times. Now, if I have just five minutes, I’ll take them. But I reach for those longer sessions, and I do what I need to to get them.

It makes us feel guilty that we’re not producing more

And this is the worst one, in my opinion. Telling people, “I did this, and I did it with just the end bits of time through my day,” makes some people, including me, feel guilty. What am I doing wrong that I can’t do the same thing? Why are her five minutes more productive than mine? Am I just stupid, what the hell is wrong with me?

No, stop that. Nothing is wrong with you, that person is lying. It’s the same mentality that makes people put on a full face of make up, take a selfie, then post it with a #nofilter #Iwokeuplikethis. No you didn’t you liar. We just all think we should be effortlessly beautiful, productive, patient and tidy. Well let me tell you, it’s not happening at my house, and probably not at yours either. If I’m going to have a productive day, I have to be up by 6:30 at the latest, at my desk by 7:00 and off to work by 9:15. Now, if I don’t manage that, I’ll fit in time whenever I can, but I really push to manage that. I have to.

Please, don’t think that this means that you don’t have the time to be a writer. It’s very likely that you do. And if all the time you have to give to it right now is five minutes, give that time. But you’re going to need more that than eventually. Anyone who tells you otherwise, is a liar.

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The Real Life Writer

So, when I started writing out a theme for last month, I ran into a bit of a snag. I thought that journalism was a great theme, and it turned out to be so. But I really had to stretch to find post ideas for all four weeks. I think I did pretty well, but I don’t like to have to write what I feel is ‘filler work’. I won’t tell you which piece I wrote last month that would fall under that category, because I feel like all of them turned out pretty strong. But I think the month would have been stronger if I hadn’t had to do that.

This month, I had the opposite problem. I sat down with my list of post ideas, and I saw a theme right away.

Real Life Writing

It’s perfect. It’s all about living your life as a writer in today’s world. All kinds of ideas popped out at me, from presenting yourself as a creative professional, to running your home efficiently so that you have more time to write, to what tools I use on a daily basis to work. It was clear, to me, that I wasn’t going to fit all of this in one month. This is two months, at least.

So I decided to change things up.

From now on, a theme will last here on Paper Beats World for as long as I have ideas to write about. If you have any questions or suggestions that you’d like me to write about in any given theme, please let me know at nicolecluttrell86@Gmail.com. I’ll be happy to hear from you, and I’ll try to answer as many of your questions as I can.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about the Real Life Writer. I think we have a lot to share with each other. I’d love to hear from you, what you do in your real life. Please let us know!

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Would Your Book Pass The Bedchel Test?

Do you know what the Bechdel Test is? I only heard of it recently, which makes me sad as a feminist.

The Bechdel test, named for the cartoonist Alison Bechdel who came up with it in a comic called Dykes to Watch Out For, consists of three rules. If a movie didn’t follow these three rules, the character in question wouldn’t go see it.

  1. The movie must have at least two female characters.
  2. They have to talk to each other,
  3. About something other than a man.

I thought this was silly, until I made a chart of all the movies I like that don’t pass that test. I’d like to share that with you. If you don’t see a movie on here, please keep in mind that I am being honest and I won’t add a movie on here if I haven’t seen it. I also have not listed all the movies I’ve ever seen, I would  be here all day. This is a list of the movies I’ve watched over the past 12 months, that are fairly well known.

Movies that Pass

The Hunger Games

Catching Fire

Mockingjay Pt 1

Frozen (Disney got a win)

Thor

Star Wars, Episode 7

Maleficent

Descendants (I have two pre teen daughters, don’t judge me.)

Mona Lisa’s Smile

Scream 1,2,3

Paranormal Activities 1-5

Dogma

Movies that don’t pass

Captain America

Iron Man 1,2,3

Avatar

The Avengers

Independence Day

Star Wars, 1-6

All Three Batman movies from the recent trilogy

Jersey Boys

All the Indiana Jones movies

All the James Bond movies

All the Men in Black movies

Jakob The Liar

Patch Adams

All 7 Freddy Kruger movies

Star Trek, 2009

Star Trek, Into Darkness

Yes, Stan Lee can be blamed for a lot of list two. We all know he was a sexist asshat, despite being a brilliant writer. He’s still an asshat.

What kills me is this; why doesn’t every movie pass this test? Is it really that hard to have two women in a book talk about something other than boys? I had to add some movies that were specifically known to be ‘feminist friendly’ to fluff that first list out.

Why? Why is it really so hard to ‘include’ women, when we are fifty percent of the population? Why do more than fifty percent of movies fail this test?

Now, I like all of the movies on the bottom list, don’t get me wrong. But, ladies and gentlemen, hear me loud and clear;

Representation Matters

I’m not the only person who’s said it, and I pray I won’t be the last. To have just one woman shown as a real person instead of background eye candy, it sends the message that this is the exception. Sure, Black Widow is badass, but we sure got Pepper Potts reminding us how women really do live to take care of men.

And don’t tell me those kinds of movies don’t sell. We’ve got Katniss, who is freaking awesome, her sister who’s just as awesome, and Joanna, and President Coin. The cast is pretty balanced with awesome women and men. Seems like those movies are doing just fine in the box office.

As writers we don’t always consider ourselves part of the ‘entertainment industry’. We should, because a lot of those movies up there were books first. Even the ones that weren’t were screen written.

And so, as one member of the entertainment industry to another, let me ask you, would your book pass the Bechdel Test?

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Said Is Not Dead!

I’ve been seeing this phrase around the internet recently, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s pissing me off.  “Said is dead.”  Have you seen this?  I really hope that it’s just a trend, and it dies a merciless death soon.

Said is a simple word.  He said, she said, they said.  I like simple words when I’m writing, and I’m not alone.  Steven King and I might not agree on outlines or how many sex scenes a horror story needs, but we do agree on this.  At least according to his book On Writing, which should be on every indie author’s reading list.

I understand that there are a lot of reasons people want to use more complex words, especially in transition.  You might think they’re boring, or that maybe your line of dialog wasn’t clear, so it needs a little help.  Maybe you just want to show off how smart you are.  Here, though, are five reasons why you should reconsider.

You should always use the right word for the situation

For example, the word very. (This is about all simple words, not just said)  I hate the word very when used in description.  The sun was not very bright.  It was blistering, it was sparkling.  He had never seen a brighter sun.  The writer who uses very in description is being lazy.  They are half assing it.

But, your characters should be free to use very whenever they please, so long as the dialog rings true for them.  If “the sun is very bright today,” sounds like what your character would say, then let her say it.  The same goes for any simple word.

If a simple word will do, it’s probably best to just use it

Especially if it was the first word that came to mind.  That is most likely to be the most natural, and most comfortable word.  Which means that it’s less likely to jar the reader.  If I read a line with the word pejorative, for instance, that’s jarring.  I know what it means, but negative would have worked just as well.  Now I’ve got the chant from that Simpson’s episode where Homer is accused of pinching the baby sitter’s bottom because she had candy stuck to her.  Totally great episode, but now I’m not thinking about your story anymore.  Complex words, when not needed, confuse laymen and distract word nerds.

Using complex words doesn’t mean you’re talking down to your readers

The New York Times is written to a fifth grade reading level.  Let’s just start with that.  So if such a well known big name newspaper is aiming there, you shouldn’t feel bad at all about writing to a similar level.  But always remember that simple words do not equal a simple thought.  Think of Steinbeck, author of such books as Of Mice And Men and Grapes Of Wrath.  Do you consider those books condescending?  Me either, yet the language is the very simplest.

If you’re writing for kids, don’t listen to me

I have a pretty impressive vocabulary, because I watch Simpsons and read Calvin and Hobbs.  I am not making that up.  My monsters are even better than I was at their age, because they read Calvin and Hobbs and Series of Unfortunate Events.  I love children writers who use great stories to teach difficult words.

I, however, am not writing for kids, so I really do not care to expand my audience’s vocabulary.  I would settle for teaching people to use the words they already know better.

Finally, the number one reason to use simple words

Your job as a fiction writer is to tell a story.  Your job as a non fiction writer is to convey information in an entertaining way.  Whatever words you chose should help you do that, not distract from it.  Just use said, and tell the damn story.

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