Category Archives: Writing Discipline

Cut and Tape

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline

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Here is a very practical tool that has served me well time and time again. Most recently a little over a week ago.

When to Use It –
There come moments in writing where the prose is well-honed, from a micro perspective, but is unordered and disorganized. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does it is always 7 or 8 drafts in. And it is a stopper. It becomes evident when reading it over a few times. You see that all the material is there and it’s written well, but the rhythm and tone feel rough. As a reader you are distracted and unable to settle in, but you can’t determine precisely why.
If you continue to try to edit and rekey you’ll only spin your wheels. You need a more dramatic move.
This tool will free you from the linear manipulation that is the edit & rekey cycle (which is THE primary way to quality prose) and give you an entirely new perspective on the draft at hand.

How to Do It –
Step 1: Make sure the prose is double-spaced (you’ll need the white space) and then print it out.
Step 2: Read it once more. Look for awkward breaks in the prose – those moments that jolt you out of the dream as a reader. Mark them. Look for sentences that follow each other but vary in color or tone and don’t seem well paired. Mark these too.
Step 3: Cut these sentences (or groups of sentences) out of the page with a pair of scissors.
Step 4: Repeat Step 2 and 3
Step 5: One you’re done cutting free your sentences discard the margins and other scraps. There may be sentences you decide to discard along with the scrap.This is good.
Step 6: Grab a clean sheet of paper.
Step 7: Reorder the sentences by laying them out. Keep the scissors handy as you may need to cut apart a few more sentences.
Step 8: Once you have reordered the entire piece, tape the sentences to the paper.
Step 9: Read the piece again and make the hand edits that are now needed in order for this new draft to hang together.
Step 10: Go back to your computer and rekey the newly taped section of prose from scratch.

There! You have a fresh draft, you understand how it’s fitting together, the prose is tighter, and you’ve added material during the rekey.
Now you’re over that hump. On to the next draft.

When Our Delight Becomes a Task

24 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline

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We live in a fast-paced, routinely and deeply dissatisfying culture.
This is not news. We live it. It is the water. We are the fish.
In this state, it is too easy for the daily actions we undertake in the practice of our creative craft to become another set of tasks on our to-do-list. If we allow it, we can sit down to read or to write and find ourselves rushing to get done, pressed to get the other “tasks” on our list finished before the day ends.
But this work – this work of taking in the creative work of others and produce the same – must be handled differently. This work is an oasis. It brings us joy. It feeds a part of us that resides at our core. It is where we value producing over consuming. It is where we marvel in the doing, not rest in the done. It is part of our image-bearing as creations of the Creator. And so, for these reasons, this work must not obey the pace and intent of the many other daily tasks we undertake.
Pause and recognize the difference between tasks and intentional actions. Move your creative work out of the task column and into the intentional, thoughtful action column.
And if possible, hire someone to mow the grass. Only you can write your next short story.

A Pair of Metaphors

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline

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Some days the writing really works – it just pops and flows – but other days it feels like you’re in the center ring, in the cage with it, your chair in one sweaty-palmed hand and your whip in the other. Across from you the writing is crouched, staring you down, showing off its roar and its razor sharp teeth.

To pile on another metaphor, I have come to see the writer’s life like being invested in the stock market, in the blue chips. You’re in it for the long haul, the return that will come months if not years hence. You’re a fool if you let any single day cause you to stall and falter or to shout and celebrate. You’re best to quietly enjoy it when it’s good and just keep going when it’s not, trusting the investment you’re making as you build your writing portfolio.

Westside Writer’s Workshop

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by in Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline

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There are six people who are now meeting once a month in Danville, Indiana, to talk about and get better at the craft of writing. The Westside Writer’s Workshop is Andrea, Roger, Jim, Rita, and Teresa. And I’m delighted to be facilitating these meetings.

There are some things you should know about these people. They are not rookies – at life or at producing a variety of creative work. They are not easily distracted. They’ve learned how to take risks. They also don’t have time to write. There are dozens of other things they could be doing. And likely a half-dozen other things that they should be doing. But they know that writing is a powerful way to process what is happening inside them – and in the worlds they inhabit.

Let me tell you how I know this.

At our first meeting I spread a stack of random portrait photos in front of them, photos I’d pulled down off Google images. I asked them to each choose one – whichever seemed to pull at them. They each leaned forward and chose one. I then asked them to write for five minutes about the person in the picture.
Within 15 seconds they had all started writing. Seven minutes later they were still writing.

The Westside Writer’s Workshop is a group of people who have things that they are driven to get down on paper. This has been obvious from the start.
And I intend to do all I can to help them get that done.

My Supporting Character

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

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I haven’t always been like this. For 18 years I was a fully functioning member of my family. I was always present, always a part of what was going on. Wherever my family was – in the living room, on the back patio, downstairs playing ping-pong – there was I. I went with my wife to the grocery store. I cleaned out the garage. I once washed the car in the driveway. I stood in the cul-de-sac and chatted with the neighbors. Time was easily spent, my attention was never split, and my mind was always on the task at hand.
On February 25th, 2010 this changed. I began writing every day.
Now some part of my brain is always working on the writing. I’ve fallen out of touch with my neighbors and my garage is a shameful mess.
I spend a lot of time alone. Every day I spend some significant part of my prime time alone, off in my study in a carefully procured silence. Because of this, my wife spends a lot of time alone as well. She gives me up to my craft. She does this willingly, and when people do things for us willingly it is easy to take such acts for granted.
Each of us has a Supporting Character*. We have someone who pays the price with us. Someone – likely the person you share a bed with – that deals with the often distant and distracted person that is you, the writer.
So as you spend another mid-winter pulling text from your core, pause and recognize that while it may look to the casual observer to be the case, you don’t work alone.

*Supporting Character is a word which here means that one who supports us who writes.

Working and Waiting

25 Wednesday Jan 2017

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Here they are, the two central tasks of the craftsman – working and waiting.
These actions, one active and the other passive, are inseparable.
No one tells you as you learn your craft that, if you go to the marketplace, you’re in for some brutally long waiting, that most of the time it will appear that you’re working only for yourself.

I spent the afternoon and evening of November 5th at Tomandy Gallery in Frederick, Maryland. My friend Alan Clingan designs and builds custom furniture – gorgeous, artful stuff, often from reclaimed materials. He has four major pieces for sale in this tastefully stocked gallery. For several hours I hung out and watched him present his work to people.
The rejection was staggering.
Over and over he talked about what went into each piece and how he conceived each design. Over and over people told him how wonderful his work is, in gushing terms of awe. They pointed and caressed and huddled close around it – – and then left. They simply walked away.
The next morning Alan and I talked about this. The conclusion we drew is that in the end, the work must sell itself. It is up to the work – the object.

As producers of craft we can overwhelm ourselves with the calculus of placement and presentation (selling) but in the end there will be one buyer in a million. Buyers (publishers and thoughtful readers in my case) are staggeringly rare. Whether it is a vintage oak cabinet or a literary short story, the great masses will walk past, pointing in wonder and delight. But our work cares not for them, it awaits the Buyer – that person who will not only observe and fall helplessly in love, but consume the work. Who will make it their own.
This transaction is between the work and the consumer. We must remove ourselves from it. We must step away and let it happen. For we control only one thing. Producing. We do the work. And this is not easy. We must develop the ability to know well our work and determine truthfully its quality, even to recognize when it is done. This is very, very difficult work. But we must tend solely and diligently to the doing of the work because no one else can.

Done? Begin Again.

24 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in Starting a Novel, Writing Discipline

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Question: What should you do as soon as you finish your novel?
This is not a trick question.
I know you need to send query letters and do all the administrative stuff of your writing life – this question is not about all of that, it’s about the writing process.
While I have you…it is important to stop working. Recognize that no one ever finishes a novel; they simply stop working on it. It’s OK to say you’re done. Perfection is out of reach. The prose simply, as Dan Barden says, needs to be functioning at a high level.
Here are some wrong answers.
Take a vacation. Go on a reading marathon of all the novels you missed while you were writing yours. Go to grad school. Take up gardening. Take up genealogy. Get a new puppy. Open a bookstore. Build a rocking chair.
Of course you can do any one of these things if you’ve decided to quit writing. That is certainly your call.

Answer: Start the next one.
Here is how the last week of July went for me:
Monday, 25 July – I put the final edits into my first book-length manuscript, backed up the file, and closed my laptop.
Tuesday, 26 July – I sent query letters, which I’d prepared over the months of June and July, to 4 agents whom I’d selected and researched earlier this year.
Wednesday, 27 July – I started writing my next novel.

If you do take time off – stop writing – between novels, and you have not decided to quit writing permanently, be careful. Be very, very careful. The discipline of practicing your craft daily is fragile. Time away is momentum lost and energy evaporated.

Hemingway Took A Question

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in Ernest Hemingway, Writing Discipline

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Interviewer: How much should you write a day?
Hemingway: The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next.

It is a weak question. It is the sort of question that doesn’t have an answer but is asked all the time. Variants of the question are: How much do you write each day? Do you write in the morning or evening?
The answers to these kinds of questions are usually flat useless. Suppose Hemingway had said “Four. Four hours make a writer’s shift,” or, “As much as you can.” I’ve heard writers give variants of both answers. But we can’t blame the inquisitor for failed answers. They’re simply trying to understand what makes the writer tick. It is up to the writer to say what needs to be said.

This quote is from a book called Earnest Hemingway On Writing. It is a slim volume of Hemingway’s comments on the craft of writing, collected and categorized. This quote is the only one I remember from the book. I suppose this is because it has served me so well. This idea has become a central part of my writing process.
I write every day. Starting is the hard part. But I have made this advice my own. I always stop when I know my start, what my first move will be the next day. I always know which paragraph, page, or section holds my starting position. In fact, I leave that document open on my laptop – ready and waiting.

Hemingway took a question he’d no doubt been asked hundreds of times and was unselfish in his answer. He was instructive. Listen. It’s good stuff.

A Parable of Commitment*

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

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He loved the violin. He loved going to the concert hall and hearing a solo violinist. He had thought about it for years and now was his time. He would take violin lessons.

The following Saturday he bought a violin. He felt like a superstar walking out of the music shop with the case under his arm. He got online and signed up with a local teacher who was well respected and set the date for his first lesson.

Every evening, leading up to that first lesson, he took his new violin out of the case and dusted it with the cleaning cloth the salesman had given him. He tuned the violin, gently plucking the strings and using the electronic tuner he had bought. He left the case open so he could glance over at the violin while he watched TV or so his friends could see it when they stopped by.

Finally the evening came for his first lesson.

The teacher taught the young man how to hold the violin and the bow. She taught him the notes of each string and how to move the bow between them. She then gave him several exercises and sent him home with these assignments.

At his second lesson the teacher asked the young man to perform his first assignment for her. He struggled. The teacher corrected a few things and sent him home with an additional assignment.

At his third lesson, again, the teacher asked him to perform his assignment. The young man struggled much like he had the week before.

And so it went: weeks of lessons, assignments, little if any discernible progress.

After a few months of lessons, the young man was surprised when the teacher told him to leave his violin in its case and have a seat. She sat down across from him.

“Tell me how has your practice time has been going?” she asked.

“It’s been going OK,” said the young man as he glanced around the room.

She was careful with her wording. “How often did you practice this last week?”

The young man didn’t quite know what to say. He looked over at his violin case which was standing open. He looked at the golden wood grain of the instrument. It was beautiful.

“Remember how I told you to practice every day for 20 minutes? We’ve talked about that several times.”

“I do. Yes.”

“Have you done that?”

“No. See, things are crazy at work.”

“I understand.”

“And the neighbors have been gone for three weeks and I’m house-sitting their dog.”

“I see.”

“And I had a really bad cold over the weekend.”

The teacher sat patiently and listened to the young man. “May I be frank?” she asked.

The young man nodded.

“You have told me many times that you love the violin and that you would love to learn to play it.” The man nodded again. “But I have identified a gap,” continued the teacher. “You have not yet committed to the process, to the work of becoming a violinist. You are not in love with learning to play the violin – you are in love with the idea of learning to play the violin.”

 

*This is not original. I heard it a long time ago and re-wrote it for you here.

Time Again for My Favorite Old Soapbox

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

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In the end, there is only one thing the writer can do. There is one accomplishment that is wholly under his control. There is only one action he can take to most influence the positive outcome of his pursuit.
Write.
Write when you have a sinus infection. Write when you’ve gotten only four hours of sleep and you keep dozing off at your computer. Write when things at the office are stressing you out. Write when family members are ill. Write when the leaves need raked and the garage needs cleaned out.
Write.
Those demands will be there, and they’ll get your attention soon enough. A successful writer is someone who finds a way to write. Every day. Under every circumstance. No matter what. They write and then they go on about their life.

Or put another way…
There is only one thing that the writer can do to ensure absolute failure at their craft.
Don’t write.
Don’t write when you have a sinus infection. Don’t write when you’ve gotten only four hours of sleep. Don’t write when things at the office are stressing you out. Don’t write when the leaves need raked and the garage needs cleaned out.
You can easily identify these people. They say things like, “It has been a crazy week, and I’ve been too busy to write,” or “I can’t focus. There is too much going on” or “I’ve had no ideas lately,”* or “I don’t have time to write.”
These people are not writers. They are not writers for one reason. They don’t write.
Is the plumber a plumber if he doesn’t daily grant himself the time/energy/focus to fool with pipes?

*Ideas are only generated when you are writing – or are in the daily habit of writing. They don’t arrive willy-nilly through some secret door to which only “creative people” hold the key!