Room for Improvement
Now Playing: Run to My Rescue, Shogun featuring Emma Lock
Topic: Writer's Discussion

I’ve heard it said that a person’s first book is often their best. It would be their best because first books can be largely autobiographical and if there’s a subject we know really well it’s ourselves. Material about ourselves will be detailed, sincere, and credible. So that makes sense.

I’m proud that my first book is out but I definitely don’t want it to be my career best. So how will I keep the quality on the rise as I depart farther and farther away from the confines of my personal experience? I guess this is where we’ll find out whether I’m really a writer or not. How credibly can I write characters who are not like me, places I’ve never been, life experiences I’ve never had?

Recently I committed myself to write a handy manual to the sport of rowing. This work is utterly different from the experience of writing a novel, but it is writing nonetheless. I want it to be at least as good or better than my novel but how do I accomplish that? I decided that to improve my writing I first need to know what’s wrong with it, certainly things that are chronically wrong with it. To learn what’s wrong with it I’ll need criticism and to get criticism I’ll need other people.

So three weeks ago I joined the Washington Creative Writers Meetup. The group of ten or so meets for a couple of hours each Thursday night in the back of a café. In a given evening four or five writers will have an opportunity to read four pages of their work aloud and then listen to criticism from the group, perhaps 10 minutes worth. Customarily each listener has a copy of the pages in front of them for mark up and, when the critique is finished, the marked-up copies go back to the author for their consideration.

This process immediately began doing things for me that I could not possibly have done for myself. Naturally the ego is afraid of scathing scrutiny but, past that, we have access to nine or ten perspectives that are naturally inclined to listen for significantly different things. One person may come down hard on your grammar where another person grants wide latitude and comments instead on your cadence (which, ironically, is an advanced aspect of your grammar).

I was nervous my first time as a reader but grateful and pleasantly surprised to receive just as much praise and support as critique and analysis. I chose to read from my already published work and I think I’ll read from it again in the future to see if we can find patterns of poor practices; habits I have that take away from my writing. My hope is to learn lessons I can implement right now to make my second book a more satisfying read than the first. I had to ask myself though, “What are you willing to do, what are you willing to go through in order to learn these things?”

As a writer I want people to read and enjoy my words so, in that respect, the reader is always right. For now, sharing with critical readers is one thing I’m willing to do to improve.

-Blake

Scope and Visibility
Now Playing: Anything Could Happen, Ellie Goulding, Clubland 22
Topic: Writer's Discussion

Last month I wrote a little about my writing process such as it is at this point in my experience. I feel certain it’ll change over time. I may develop the ability to see further along my storyline or even to know the ending to a story even as I’m only beginning it. But that’s not for today.

For today, writers write. What I’ve learned so far is that, if I want something to get written, I have to push on and write. I can’t hold myself back because I didn’t get the wording of something just right. I can’t stubbornly refuse to move forward just because I don’t exactly know how a chapter is going to resolve. Today I give myself permission to experiment. It has to be permissible to write badly or even to write an entire chapter that’s unsalvageable. That’s okay. Usually the experience of writing something badly leads directly to something quite good. The unpleasant part is just the price I pay for finding my way.

I’m sure that many of the greats like Clancy, Patterson, and Brown have a well defined picture of exactly where they are going more or less from the beginning. But I have to remember a couple of things. First of all, my name isn’t Tom, Jim, or Dan; I’m Blake. No one says I have to be like those men in order to have a good time and maybe enjoy a little readership too. Secondly, I haven’t written anywhere near as many words, sentences, or paragraphs as those guys have. With practice I’m sure I will develop the vision to see the development of ten major turning points simultaneously, as I write.

For now I give myself the latitude to bumble a little, to take advantage of luck, and bark up the wrong tree. I get some work done by committing ideas to keystrokes; not by sitting in front of a new Word document hemming and hawing about the ending. Most Likely to Succeed worked out to be four quarters of exactly thirteen chapters each. Was that the result of meticulous planning and clairvoyance? Not hardly. The book really did just work itself out that way. Fifty-two chapters in four suits, just like a deck of cards. No one was more surprised than me. The next novel may be symmetrical in some other way. We’ll have to wait and see what suggests itself.

Stop pondering and hit the keys.

-Blake

The "Process"
Now Playing: Way Out West, Earth
Topic: Writer's Discussion

Posting here requires you to create a Tripod account. If you'd rather not create a Tripod account, please by all means feel free to email me directly at email@IvyLeagueKillers.com. It will please me a lot to write to you.

Yesterday someone asked me about my writing 
"process." I put the air-quotes in there because when we talk about the process there's this temptation on the part of struggling writers to think that there is only one. All I can tell you about is my process. I'll tell you, and then maybe you can take from it any parts that will work for you; toss the rest.

In a nutshell, I had an idea for a story on October 23rd, began writing on the 24th, and didn't stop until it was done at 6pm, December 31st. For weeks I insisted I was working on a short story, then a vignette, a novella, and finally a novel somewhere around page 215. In retrospect, it was a great advantage that I wanted a modest scope all along the way. Small goals are achievable goals.

Now I wrote like a crazy person because I was inspired like a crazy person. Typical days for me were 14 to 17 hours, 7 days a week with 8 and 12 hours for Thanksgiving and Christmas respectively. I took no breaks, ate usually once per day, drank coffee every waking moment, and smoked enough cigarettes to become Governor Emeritus of North Carolina. I proved to myself that the opposite of exhaustion is whole heartedness.

Each day I woke without an alarm between 4:30 and 6:00am. I set the coffee going and ate 1 teaspoon of ice cream to treat myself with kindness as quickly as possible. I took the coffee to my meditation spot and rid myself of intrusive thoughts for 20 to 60 minutes. Then came phone messages, text messages, emails, bill paying, and outgoing mail; all of which usually took fewer than 30 or 40 minutes (especially if you repeat this process everyday). As new communications came in throughout the day I would table anything possible until the following day's routine.

So far my approach probably seems awfully spartan and disciplined but I want to stress two things. 1) This architecture for my days did not take shape overnight! This took shape over weeks. 2) I very much doubt that you or anyone else could adopt this regimen and mysteriously find yourself inspired to write. Probably won't happen. Remember I said I was inspired like a crazy person. The inspiration came first and then I altered my lifestyle to accommodate the inspiration. I would say that 45% of my book was written with my fingers trying to key as fast as I could think. And if I fell short for speed, I'd turn to my storyboard where I could feel free to pin up incomplete thoughts and ideas.

If you want what I had, you'll do some of what I did. Not all, just some. Inspiration comes first. I've seen many people with "writer's block" because frankly they're trying to write what their ego thinks they should write. "I should be writing a critical essay on the perils of revisionist history." Really? How come your little voice says you'd like to write a children's story featuring political personalities for small animals in the woods?

Write what you're moved to write. Write when you're moved to write. Write where you're moved to write. If you're not liking what you're doing, you're probably not doing God's will for you. Angels will frown. There will be consequences. If the time is wrong, if you just don't feel like it, take a nap or go do something else. And the where, the where is also crucial for productivity. In Most Likely to Succeed I happened to write chapters 1,2, and 3 in succession but then I was moved to work on what I felt would probably be chapters 7 and 9. So be it, that's where I went, and I took my storyboard with me. So be willing to go where you are moved, you can worry about the connective tissue later.

This is all I'm going to say about process for now but I'll revisit it soon. Email me and that will inspire new posts I'm sure.

-Blake