Note to self: Humanize

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2009-12-26T13:48:00.003Z

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15. The best hours to write

2009-12-22T14:55:00.003Z

Everyday, I spend a couple of hours reading manuals about the world of writing. I hope that expression sums it all up: techniques, grammar, advices, commercial VS literary, other authors, editors, agents, publishers, readers... I'm an addict for knowledge about the things that are driving me the most on each moment of my life.

After reading all the advices and techniques, I like to test them and eventually make them into my own advices to myself, and stick to what works.

Many of us, when we start our first novel, like to know how our favorite authors found their inspiration and most of all, when do they write, for how long at a time and even where. The reality is that each author discovered his/hers own method, usually is very specific (or not at all) and works exclusively with them.

I read a lot of advices stating we should write first thing in the morning, because it's when we are 'fresh' and full of energy. I've tried that. Nothing came out. The screen remained white because everything I wrote made me furious or depressed and wondering if writing was really for me.

Then I read an improvement to that first advice: go outside first, walk a bit, then write. Yes, I wrote. Nothing relevant to the story I really wanted to tell tough. So it got deleted again.

Since then, I've read about authors that only write every 2nd or 3rd day, between which they continue their daily life always thinking about their plot in their minds. I discovered I do that, I'm constantly thinking about new actions and new dialogues. My characters seem to be living inside my head, growing while I get to know them better and better. However, if I spend 2 or 3 days without writing something meaningful, I get a bit lost and my confidence drops.

I've also read about authors that write during lunch time, others after lunch, other in the middle of the afternoon, or at dinner, or after dinner, lots before bed, many wake up and write or don't even have a specific time to sleep and few writers that don't have a specific time to write. All of these authors, whatever the hour, do the most important thing in their career: write in the timeline that works for them.

So, after more than a month writing and testing myself, I've discovered my method:
I wake up and watch TV for an hour, sometimes two. Yes, TV it's the devil for some, but people inspire me everywhere, so those 2 hours-a-day boost me up.
During the rest of the morning I read manuals on creative writing, stop to do some household chores, sometimes outside, read more pages of another manual, stop for more chores, surf the web to read a couple of blog entries or sites about writing, stop to lunch, clean a bit more and starting from 14h30 (usually) I sit and start working on my novel.

Usually I write until my husband gets home, and that varies, but usually he arrives around 18h30/19h00.

At night, before I go to sleep, I like to relax and read any book I find entertaining, good written and inspiring.I strongly believe we should never stop being readers, first of all. At the moment, my lullaby has been "The Host", by Stephenie Meyer.

So while there's really no specific hour that we all should choose to write, scientifically proven to be the best performance time line, there's certainly a specific period of the day that works better for each one of us and it's as individualized as we all are, as complex human beings.

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

14. About the Money

2009-12-17T15:43:00.001Z

Usually writers don't like to talk about the money they earn from writing. I can understand that, if you give away your numbers maybe you cannot negotiate a better deal next time?... Don't know, never been there.

I found a post entry from Susan Beth Pfeffer, someone that lives and lived from her writing all her life, and is now on her 75th book (!) who decided to share a bit more about her numbers, here.

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

13. If it's not scary, it's not for you

2009-12-17T13:07:00.000Z

I heard somewhere, many years ago, that we should go for the things that make us scared. Obviously, they didn't mean date a psychopath! Only the things that you are scared of but at the same time never really leave your mind. Those are the things that will make you stronger after you've done them. Those are the things that define your limits, so when you overcome them the strength that comes from it is in discovering your life has no limits.

There is always something in my life that scares me. Some things involve other people, so all I can do is be patient and find ways to keep positive or find alternative solutions if necessary. Like the fear I have of never getting pregnant when my husband finally agrees to start a family. Then there are other small fears, about parts of my body that never worked that well, like my left eye, some day shutting down completely.

The good thing is that usually, the most overwhelming fears are the ones only we can do something about. That's why I believe they exist for a reason. My most overwhelming fear, after I finished my bachelors degree, was to never find a job in graphic & web design. I know it sounds easy to achieve, but my father educated me to be perfect in everything I did, the best and so on... so I grew up afraid of everything I had to do professionally and obsessed with knowledge. But lots of perseverance and even moving to another country, got me there, straight into a full time position with an amazing paycheck.

After a year, I discovered working in design, as commercial as it is today, not only didn't scare me anymore, but was draining me out. I kept doing the job, we bought a car that broke down, we bought another, went on vacations and yet our savings kept getting bigger and bigger (still are very healthy, I'm against credit cards or loans), until one day the economic crisis hit the company, they fired several people before discovering they had to let me go too. That was this October, and I officially left the office in November. Common sense whispered to me that I should apply to another job, doing exactly the same thing. But mentally I was stressed, irritated and feeling very old, with only 30 years of age.

Someone told me to take a couple of months off, relax, enjoy my savings, myself, my fresh married life. Doing that consciously, not applying to another job, was scary as well. What would everyone think?

The next thing was discovering what scared me the most, and that was admitting, after all that hard work, I didn't want to work in design anymore. My family still doesn't know. That's one of the joys of living in another country.

And writing came along after that, very easily, almost like it was meant to be since the beginning, the scariest thing and the thing I should be doing all along.

It feels right.
I know eventually I may want to start a new job (part-time or full-time), but I know now that I will never stop writing again, especially in English, my second language. And the funny thing is writing is scary every-single-day! And that's why I do it.

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

12. Openings

2009-12-16T18:26:00.000Z

Several authors write about the importance of Openings.

When starting a new story, Mary Mackie on Creative Editing, advises us that we should make sure the 5 Ws are somewhere in the first paragraphs. Who (character), where (place), when (time), why (motivation) and what (motif). Of course there's an exception to this rule and we may want to leave something out deliberately, as a mystery to disclose later, but the main idea is that the reader doesn't like to feel left out in too many of these things. Readers like to be part of the story as much as possible, for only then they can develop empathy towards the main character and imagine living in their shoes. That's the only reason we read, to live in other people's shoes, to have a break from our lives and our little world.

In Language of Fiction, Keith Sanger uses some sample openings from established authors, comments them, and advises us to pay attention to openings in books we read and loved. See rules that apply to them. Analise if they hold us in, how they do it, and discover why you wanted to read more. If you stopped reading, discover why. If your story has the same gender and voice, avoid the things that drove you out.

Now I understand how important an opening must be, specially in a world where we all move at fast-pace and readers as well as agents will often rely on those first pages to decide if they will keep reading us or drop the book in a forgotten place.

I love the opening of my story. The first line was probably the only thing I didn't edit yet. My challenge has been delivering the rest of that Chapter as strong as that first line I wrote. I keep jumping into other Chapters ahead and coming back to that first Chapter to add one paragraph at a time, editing a lot. I think I'm constantly practicing what I learn from all the manuals and my writing is growing with me. I believe writing is an art we learn with practice and the more I write in English, more natural it becomes and words will flow easily with time. One good thing about writing in my second language is that I check myself much more often than a native speaker and I recognize cliches, and avoid them, easily.

So here're some First Chapter Openings from some of my favorite authors, in very different voices and ways to draw us in:

"Jenny-May Butler, the little girl who lived across the road from me, went missing when I was a child.
The Gardaí launched an investigation, which led to their lengthy public search for her. For months every night the story was on the news, every day it was on the front pages of the papers, everywhere it was discussed in every conversation. The entire country pitched in to help; it was the biggest search for a missing person I, at ten years of age, had ever seen, and it seemed to affect everyone."

Cecelia Ahern, in A Place Called Here.(author of "PS: I Love You")

" I knew it would begin with the end, and the end would look like death to these eyes. I had been warned.
Not these eyes. My eyes. Mine. This was me now.
The language I found myself using was odd, but it made sense. Choppy, boxy, blind, and linear. Impossibly crippled in comparison to many I'd used, yet still it managed to find fluidity and expression. Sometimes beauty. My language now. My native tongue.
With the truest instinct of my kind, I'd bound myself securely into the body's center of thought, twined myself inescapably into its every breath and reflex until it was no longer a separate entity. It was me."

Stephenie Meyer, in The Host. (author of the Twilight saga)

I wish I had an established author or two, willing to read my opening and tell me in all honesty if it's as good as I think it is. But then again, I think we all have different opinions and even what attracts one agent or publisher, may not seem especial to another. So I'll just carry one trying to be my best teacher with what I have and learn each day.

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

11. Why I write

2009-12-16T13:08:00.000Z

Today I found the quote that defines exactly why I stopped (almost) everything in my life, to write:

"You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing. Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have."
Norman Vincent Peale
1898-1993, Pastor, Speaker and Author

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

10. Music gets me there

2009-12-14T17:59:00.000Z

Music always helped me write. At the moment, I'd recommend Zero 7, Dave Mathews (these guys can never go wrong!) and New Moon's OST.
__

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

9. Jacinta McDevitt let me down

2009-12-09T13:51:00.000Z

The two tips on Creative Writing I identify with the most, are:

1) cut down on the adjectives
2) reject clichés.

Most of my writing starts with those two advices in mind. Then, when in doubt, I always find reassurance on Mary Mackie's advice: "Is it relevant?"

My writing is going OK, though still somewhat slow. I'm writing around 700 words a day and discovered I'm constantly editing and rethinking everything. I don't want to have a boring story or a style full of clichés. So I write and then I make sure it's an easy reading and the action keeps on going. I think I edit a lot because all the things that make a good writing don't come on the first draft and I loved to discover that I'm not the only one believing writing is NOT like that romantic idea that says 'a complete new novel came to the author in a dream' and 'he cannot stop writing because everything that comes out of him is beautiful'.

Take Stephenie Meyer, for example. The first idea for her first novel (Twilight) came to her in a dream - correct. But as she says, the dream was only a dialogue between a girl and a vampire in a meadow. Yes, that dream was amazing, that dialogue was inspiring. But there was a lot of work to put that into a 500 pages novel (and a 4 book saga). In her website, in "The Story Behind Twilight", interviews and public appearances, she confides about all the hours she spent on trying to convey that dream and all the ideas around it, into paper. How she then edited, and edited, and edited some more, until it made sense and was at her best writing. By the way, I admire Stephenie Meyer since the beginning. (After John Grogan's "Marley & Me", the first book I read in English until the end, in the beginning of 2008, which will always be dearest to me) it was Stephenie's saga that got me into reading full books in English non-stop and since then I can't read a full book in my first language anymore without getting bored... I love English!

All this to say, that i hate the books on Creative Writing that try to convince us we are all writers, try to arrange schemes to makes us write this-amount-of-words a day, but then are shallow about teaching us everything that actually makes a good writing. Of course I believe in-the-dream - I'm crazy enough to write in a language I didn't even read in, on a daily basis, 2 years ago! Crazy girl, I know. But, that is to say that Jacinta McDevitt's "Write a Book in a Year" has been a disappointment. Though, to be fair to her, she does say the book is just what it says in the title, write-a-book-in-a-year. She does try to motivate us to write, that part is true. However, without any rule on good writing, after a year we would end up with a poor novel, that no one wants to read.

A good writing, in my opinion, must be easy to read and for that we must know about the language of fiction. That is not just good written English.That is believable written English, and for that there are rules, discovered by good writers, that create that illusion of reality within a fictional story.(Or even a non-fictional one, that poorly written will not feel real at all).

I believe that writing is hard work. Of course the author has a great idea in his head, but not one that covers all action of a complete novel. The original idea doesn't already come with 90.000 words combined to perfection. That is as much of a myth, as saying "everyone is a writer". It's not true. To transform a good idea into a book that someone wants to read until the end it's actually an elaborate work and a very well planned one. That's why the more they write, the better authors say they become.

Stephenie Meyer admits that her new book "The Host" is better written than all her previous, especially compared to "Twilight" which she said on Oprah (backstage interview) she would change a lot of things now, if she was to re-write it. If it was all just a 'thing' that is born with the author, and magically appears in the paper, they wouldn't have to edit it all. I'm reading "The Host" at the moment (along with several books on Creative Writing - see sidebar) and I can understand the differences. It's a more mature writing, not so much I-did-this and then I-went-there, and ops! this-happened. And I admire all writers that admit they could do better and have grew with practice. That's being honest and realistic.

To enphasise this, there's Dr. Johnson's line, in "The Writer's Handbook 2008," that says:

"What is written without effort

is in general read without pleasure."

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

8. Originality

2009-12-08T16:48:00.000Z

"To be shockingly original with your first novel you don't have to discover a new technique: simply write about people as they are and not as the predominantly liberal and humanist literary Establishment believes that they ought to be."

John Braine

7. Counting words

2009-12-03T21:13:00.000Z

I wrote 1.971 words today!!!

Hurray for new-beginnings!

From now on I shall NOT break this habit!! - Not that I impose that same number everyday; to be honest I was happy with just 250 of good creative writing. Than that number was quickly reached and I thought 'Okay, 500'. Than 1000, than 1200, and so on... until I just stopped looking at the numbers and went with the flow. Apparently 1900 is my limit because my head started to hurt.... autch!

I had to leave my heroine alone in a room with a skinny old man asking a very difficult question in a cold ironic voice. Poor girl. I'll be back tomorrow to see how she's holding on.

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

5. Structure

2009-12-02T13:05:00.000Z

My writing - on itself - is on standby, though it never really stops in my head. I felt the need to focus on the full story structure and am finding more useful to define bullet point lists of what's on my mind for each chapter, than to start writing without an idea of what's going to happen next.
Reading books on Creative Writing before going much further, has given me that much needed self confidence that every first time writer craves. I'm learning a lot from Mary Mackie's "Creative Editing", taking several notes, but can't wait to get my hands on all the other manuals I brought from the library, before it's time to return them.
My husband is supporting me a lot in what I feel represents one of my biggest leaps of faith - but I know that if I hadn't stop everything else going on in my life to just focus on my book, I wouldn't take it so seriously.
Most of the time it's an exciting challenge, specially because I'm writing in my second language - that makes it scarier,- but I know this is the time (no kids, no bank loans, no stress) and somehow I feel that it will be worth it. Fighting for our dreams always is, if you really mean it and promise yourself never to give up.

Vanessa Condez, Note to self: Humanize.

4. Write for yourself

2009-12-02T12:43:00.000Z

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
— Cyril Connolly

3. I or Me?

2009-11-27T13:22:00.000Z

Mary Mackie wote:

Some people seem to feel that 'I' is always more correct than 'me'; others can't decide, so compound the error by making it 'myself'. The grammatical rule is to use 'I' for the subject of the sentence and 'me' for the object. But, if this kind of technicality turns your brain to jelly, there is a way round it: a simple rule of thumb is to eliminate the other person - the person who goes along with 'I' or 'me'.

E.g.: Mother gave John and I some tickets for the theater. If you take John out of it, it becomes evident that this is wrong: you wouldn't say 'Mother gave I some tickets...' So: Mother gave John and me some tickets. CORRECT!

'You, me and the gatepost' (page 40) in Creative Editing, by Mary Mackie

2. Two first steps

2009-11-26T13:20:00.000Z

My first step after realizing my writing potential, was to ignore it. I don't know if this can count as an excuse, but I was 7. Usually we know writing is special to us pretty soon, around the same time we learn how to start, develop and finish a story on paper. I was lucky enough to have my family encouraging me to express with written words since I was 5 and I started to read all sort of books on my dad's shelves soon after, tough I was never confident enough to believe that was special, and still fight my doubts everyday.

So around 7 I loved poems and wrote short stories for school. Soon after, somebody offered me a diary at Christmas and I wrote everyday. I filled several diaries for many years until I was 20 and my first true love of 3 years, ended. Yes, I'm talking about the love between a boy and a girl, tough I see it now: my first true love was writing.

Anyway, my confidence was put down and I stopped believing in fairy tales altogether. No one really lives of their writing, right? I should grow up and focus on my future!

Well, I was partly right - no one should start writing for money - but if I'd pay attention, I would know that writing kept me balanced and you just really grow up at 30, so may as well try some craziness in your 20's and find some self forgiveness after.

I was never completely off writing, but I did it so randomly that nothing I wrote was ever finished or good enough. I've been fighting my own self all these years. I've been keeping myself from what makes me human; hiding my emotions, fighting my guts off and living the professional dream society stands me proud of.

Am I crazy for giving that all up? Yes, I probably am. At the time, I'm cleaning society out of me. Do you ever get the feeling that you don't live in society, but society lives inside you? That's how I feel. I'm washing it all up. I'm on a brake from rules and what's wise. I'm actually writing my first novel and wondering what my second job's gonna be. And it's not gonna be about money: I already lived that dream: it was nice and empty.

This time around, it's about me. They say you only start living at 30, hope they're right.
So my first step after realizing my writing potential - at 30! - was to run to the nearest library and find what the hell can I do with it. I brought 7 manuals about Creative Writing, Creative Editing, Grammar and Syntax, ...

As I read "the only way to learn how to write is to sit down and do it" (Mary Mackie), guess my second step? Whether I'm scared or full with confidence, I always sit down, open my laptop and add words to my novel. It's not always magical, but one of the things I've learned so far is that magic is nothing but a group of tricks you master with practice.

Note to self: Humanise - a blog about Creative Writing

1. Hi, I'm Vanessa

2009-11-24T16:20:00.000Z

I see myself as a perfectionist and I usually feel responsible for everything around me.
One day I tried to let go and take some months off to see what I really like doing. Writing came up sharp and clean in my own vision of what I’m afraid of trying. And you know what they say about that. Even scarier – to write in my 2nd language – which I’m doing at the moment.

Excuses: I had my full-time job and exercised perfectness so that when I got home I felt I did ‘my part’. I wasn’t happy. Great pay check, job in my degree area, happily married and thinking the next step was pregnancy (30 is the time to go, right?). Everything society expected me to. And yet the more I accomplished the more lost and stressed I behaved. So I knew I had to take some radical step to break the pattern. I stopped my full-time torture of a job and did nothing (for a couple of days). Then I was reading about Creative Writing.

It’s only been a month now and I don’t want to be at home and unemployed forever – also scary – but I know it’s the only way I take my dreams seriously. I'm being honest with myself, and better to try all craziness before we decide to have kids, bank loans or any other priority, right?

I studied Mary Mackie's 'Creative Editing' before I started writing. She's great. As a perfectionist I love to edit and every word has to bring something relevant or it’s just self indulgence. Now I understand why I dropped accomplished authors; somewhere in between they stopped being relevant and wrote too much to say what could have taken a small (brilliant) paragraph. I want my books to be brilliant and ‘undroppable’ one day.

Good luck with your dreams.
Vanessa