Fiction Scribe

I would just like to say…

It’s not a crime to write and want to get paid as well as published.

Backing up a little…

Some older authors act like it’s a crime to write for anything other than the passion of it. I’m not accusing all experienced authors, but there are those out there who would raise their nose and roll their eyes if you said you were seeking a paying market for your work instead of saying you simply want to get published.

Yes, there is an art to writing and a passion you need to have to be a good writer, but it isn’t wrong to see if you can get financial compensation for your work. No longer are we in the days of royalty putting up money to sponser artists. You have to live and you have to eat. Perhaps you write best when you’re hungry and your rent is due tomorrow, but eventually you have to eat and you have to pay that rent.

I’m having a bit of a rant in this post, but every author I’ve ever spoken to has dreamed at one time of being the “next big thing” or, in the writing world, the next best-selling author. Seeking to be published is the same in a lot of ways to seeking getting paid for your work. True, a lot of contests don’t have financial rewards but actually getting published through a publishing company will bring you money.

However, while writing and exploring if you could possibly get paid for it is all fine and good, writing only for the money is a bad, bad idea. If you go about it like that, then it will come down to food money or rent money. Or, not and.

Write because you have a passion for writing, but don’t feel bad if you want to try to make a buck off it. Just don’t have a passion for money and try to do some writing for some.

NaNoWriMo is starting in four and a half hours for people in Oz and will soon be starting for everyone else around the world. I know there are those who have taken up the challenge and are already regretting what they have yet to start while others still are counting down the minutes until the initial rush of creativity and adrenaline that comes with those first few moments.

The rest of us are going to go to bed at a normal time and start in the morning. Or after work, depending on when/if you work.

I only discovered NaNo last year, but with just that one experience, I am still aware that NaNo is more than just a fun time. This event can get you to look past the art and wonderful self-image of being a writer (unless you’re one of those tortured artist types) and into crunch time, which polishes the writer and shows if you truly have a writer’s heart.

So whether you “make it” or not, take what you can out of this entire month and your creative (although slightly rushed) process. Good luck to everyone participating.

Get ready, get set…

Instead of posting links here and there as I go, I sat down and did some hunting so I won’t have as many one-link posts. These are all sites I’ve wandered around and found to be useful for one thing or another. I hope you enjoy.

Writing Fiction and The Novel As well as having a good list of upcoming workshops, in the middle column down the page a bit there are links to genre sites where you can better get to know how the current market is going for what you’re writing in.

ERP Media Upon first finding this site, I simply loved the look of it. This site provides some simple PDFs to help get yourself organized for submitting and researching markets if you’re like me and are to, erm, busy to organize yourself. Add on a large list of links as well as some good information and you have one of my favored sites.

…Okay, so I only have two so far which have made a strong impression on me, but it takes a bit for a site to grow on me. I’ll be sure to post more in the future.

I just wanted to post up a link to a site I find very informative and helpful. Check it out when you have the time.

The Writer

The time has come again. I remembered to post my results this time. Yay!

I say … and you think … ?

1. Costume :: Party
2. Beg :: Plead
3. Hottie :: Model
4. Celebrity :: Dating
5. Saturday :: Night
6. Buckle :: Up
7. Doorbell :: DingDong
8. Rude :: Obscene
9. Absence :: Empty
10. Hyper :: Active

I mentioned different kinds of generators in the previous post, and I’d like to just touch on name generators. I personally don’t go much for the name generators for anything other than occasional amusment. (Deadly Whispers is my assassin name.)

Picking that just right character name can be a real struggle because names can convey personality as well as giving the reader a loose image of what the character looks like. Think of the name Marcus for a little bit. Get a picture of him in your head… Now think of Lou. Not the same people at all, are they?

So instead of name generators, I go with baby name sites so I can at least get an idea of what I’m looking for.

My two recommendations are:

Baby Names World which gives you different search options, as well as an advanced search which I often use.

and

Parenthood.com which is a bit of a simpler setup where you can just plug in a name meaning. I like to use this a lot of times because the meaning of a name can sometimes be just as important as the name itself.

If you have any name sites you like, please let me know because I’m always looking for something that will work just a little better than the services I use now.

I think most writers know there are millions of generators out there. Name generators, setting generators, plot generators… I’m going to talk about the plot generator.

More power to you if you like these things and great if they help, but I personally hate plot generators. I partially feel like I’m cheating as a writer. Sort of… not living up to what a writer is supposed to be. I mean, if I can’t come up with even the beginning, how am I supposed to write an entire book?

Call me spoiled, but I want to be inspired by something in my life, and that has never once come off “Bobby’s List of 4,000 ways to start your novel!” (My apologies if there is actually a site out there with that header…)

There are some great ideas on those lists, (I check thing out before I argue about them) but please. In a previous post I said that no, it’s not all writing what you know, but at least the beginning, the seed, should come from you. Whether you use Miracle Grow or Miracle Whip on that seed to make it grow is your choice, but at least have that little seed come from you.

Go through the plot ideas list if you must, but I’d think you’d spend your time better writing something, anything, than spend your time reading through 1,000 things you don’t want to write about.

You’re a fiction writer, which means you have an imagination. You’re also human, which means you have experiences. Combine them and use them. You don’t need a generator to get you started.

You know all I said about how it’s not all writing what you know?

Well, put a hold on that for just a moment.

If you’re like me, submitting your stories is never far from your mind. Wanting to take that first dive and maybe, just maybe get paid for your writing is something to drool a little over. My first paying publication came from none other than Chicken Soup for the Soul.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Chicken Soup, they are collections of short stories about people from all over the place. Real life events about… well, your life.

So in this case, do write what you know. Check out the site and submit a true story about something that has happened to you that taught you a lesson. They are accepting for many titles right now and you can even submit under no title so they can decide where they might want it.

It pays well and the submissions can be done online, so what do you have to lose?

A writer died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell.

She decided to check out each place first. As the writer descended into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes.

“Oh my,” said the writer. “Let me see heaven now.”

A few moments later, as she ascended into heaven, she saw rows of writers, chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes.

“Wait a minute,” cried the writer. “This is just as bad as hell!”

“Oh no, it’s not,” replied an unseen voice. “Here, your work gets published.”

Found at: National Writer’s Union

I was reading up on relationship stuff by Christina at Long Relationships, and I caught this post:

A Long Kiss Goodnight

Well, I got to thinking about my first kiss, which got me thinking about how much anxiety I felt about kissing before my first kiss, which got me thinking… Anyway, my chain of thinking finally led me to how much I felt awkward when writing about kissing.

Something that has always bothered me is trying to write about things I’d never experienced. Naturally I can’t ever experience holding a fireball in my bare hand, but realistic things like horseback riding and the smell of the ocean were hard for me to write about because of the fact I didn’t have any experiences to draw on.

Therein lies what I feel is one of the greatest challenge to writers. Especially fiction writers who sometimes create entire worlds from scratch.

I have always sought out all the experiences I could so I could have a large arena to draw from, but there are some things you just can’t do. That lack is where imagination comes in. Without imagination, the writer has very little.

“Write what you know” was one of the most annoying things for me to hear when I was younger. Because I was young, I automatically assumed I didn’t know enough to write about anything. Going to Toronto, Canada when I was twelve got me past that line of thinking, but I know writers who are around my age and older who still think they don’t know enough of anything to write what they know.

Newsflash: It’s not just writing what you know.

Writing fiction could never be entirely writing about what you know because people don’t want to know what you know so much as they just want to be taken away from what they know and into another world. The key is taking what you know, applying imagination, and creating something only you are expert on because it’s all from your head. (I’ll touch a bit on this when I write “The Importance of Backstory”.)

So when someone tells you to write what you know, don’t do what I used to do and glare at him or her a moment before turning away to roll your eyes. Take it for granted that everyone, even if you think you don’t, knows something as is proved in part by myself and all the other people who blog for 451Press. We all declare that we at least know a little something about a certain subject. My bet is that you do, too.

Combine one part knowledge, one part imagination, one part talent, and just a sprinkle of that which makes your writing yours, and you have yourself a story.

On this blog I’d like to introduce what I’m calling “Saturday Night Exercises.” (Which might turn out to be Friday exercises depending on your world location.) There are quite a few games of “tag” floating around the blog world, some of which serve as my favorite writing warm-ups or exercises.

Starting off, I’d like to put up the “I Statements”

It’s as easy as filling in the blanks. Why is this an exercise? Because you can fill it out, then ask “why?” for each one and have some interesting stories if you put your mind to it.

The “I” Question

I Said:
I Want:
I Wish:
I Hate:
I Miss:
I Hear:
I Wonder:
I Regret:
I Am Not:
I Dance:
I Sing:
I Cry:
I Am Not Always:
I Make With My Hands:
I Write:
I Confuse:
I Need:
I Should:
I Start:
I Finish:

PS. This can also be used as an alternative to a character sheet if you aren’t that interested in writing all that height/weight/hair color stuff.

“Where do you get your ideas?” is a question I get asked quite a bit. There are plenty of answers ranging from the odd: “From the Easter Bunny,” to the obscure: “A galaxy far, far away.”

I feel that a lot of the time, it’s not so much the lack of any ideas that holds up the fiction writer but rather, the lack of an idea the writer feels is “good” enough. His skin may be green, but he’s still just not alien enough. Idea tossed. Her world has two suns, but I don’t think that’s interesting enough. Idea tossed.

Let me just take the time to say… STOP doing that!

Rule #1 about writing (fiction especially): It’s highly unlikely you are going to be satisfied with any of your work on the first try. You may be satisfied with it as a first try, but that’s about as far as it goes most of the time.

The same goes not only for completed stories but for partial stories and even the ideas floating around in your head waiting to be written on that restaurant napkin. The sad thing is that a lot of writers so easily throw away their ideas without giving them the draft process they give to ideas they give the chance to develop.

My little tip of the day is to, if you haven’t already, start your own misc. file/file 13/planes, trains, and odd inspirations file. You may not use Xan from the land of Caa for two years, but ideas aren’t weeds - they need encouragement. If you keep snuffing them out (even if that one creature does have three eyes…), you’re stifling your creativity flow. Soon enough you’ll get so used to telling yourself no that ideas which could be developed into the next best seller will be stifled before they fully bubble up to the surface.

Stop caring about what’s “good” or “bad” and just start having fun. You’ll be creating a world, or at least lives and destinies, so relax and have a little fun. Most importantly, though, don’t let anything go to waste.

I’m doing a lot of little posts right now to sort of root myself down, and I apologize. However, I would like to post this little tidbit up and see if anyone would like to play…

http://subliminal.lunanina.com/

I firmly believe that all types of writers encounter that “writer’s block” thing because their brains get too bored. Give it some wordplay - even better, wordplay on a regular basis - and see what happens.

Unconscious Mutterings is a creative exercise of sorts that goes along with “I’ll tell you a word and then you tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.” I’ve been doing it for a good while now and while I always find it entertaining to blaze through and then read back, it’s doubly fun with others to play along too.

So, if anyone would like to play along, you don’t have to sign up for anything (if you don’t want to) and you can even post your results right in my comments. Check out the site and try it for yourself. If you like it enough, I’d love to have people to compare with.

If you haven’t heard of it, NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month - is an international challenge to write 50,000 words in the month of November. This rounds out to a bit over 1,500 words per day all month.

Located at www.nanowrimo.org , NaNoWriMo can provide you with not only a jumpstart on your next novel, but an exercise (albeit a large exercise) in getting over yourself in a matter of speaking so you can just let the writing flow.

I encourage you to check the site out and sign up! The site even includes a forum where you can meet people in your genre, your country, and maybe even your hometown. Fun stuff all around.

Cheers.

PS. I go by Sylver on the forum, so feel free to add me to your buddy list and/or shoot me a PM.

Cheers, mates!

I couldn’t resist putting up this little video I saw months ago. Has anyone been through something like this? I’d love to hear all the horror stories.