Writing and Work Ethics

A member of my writing group brought up the age old problem with being a writer. You have to write. Writing every day is, according to the general consensus, a good way to go about it. Some people set a goal for how much they want to write every day: a page, a paragraph, 500 words, or as this guy(Steve Bohls) does 1639.34 words per day (I cheated a little bit and took his year goal and divided it, but it still works out about right. Good thing it's a leap year or else it would be 1643.84. You should take a look, his stories are engaging and his writing starts out good and gets better.) Fantasy writer David Farland even made writing daily his new year's resolution, and he's coming up on a solid two dozen books published with numerous best sellers.

For me, I often try to set aside a certain amount of time I will be writing instead of a word-count (If you are a writer you will become familiar with word-count. 80k for a novel, 50k for a young adult novel, 20k novelette, 6k for a short story, 120-300k for an epic. The numbers are pretty fluid, but as a writer you'll probably become familiar with those numbers. I'll do another post on length another day.) Man was that ever a long parenthetical. Anyway, like I said, I usually tend to set aside a certain amount of time each day to write and any writing will work. However, if I am on a project I will change my goal to match the number of words per day I need to finish my project on time.

That brings me to my main point. Writing needs to be taken seriously, and it's not always easy. Most successfully published authors that I've talked to or listened to describe their writing as a job.** They sit down for a certain amount of time each day (just like a job) and work on writing. If they are making business decisions then they usually spend some time doing that too. But the biggest part of being a writer is writing. Your words are your product. Imagine if Nabisco suddenly stopped making Oreo cookies. First of all, the world as we know it would cease to exist. But second, they wouldn't sell any more Oreos. We would not be able to buy Oreos because there would be none. That's the same thing with your words as a writer. If you don't produce any, there won't be any...no matter how many good ideas you have.

An important mental shift for any writer is when they decide to make writing a priority-making it a job. Take some time to figure out what your goals are, and above all, write every day. Publishing a book is akin to getting a master's degree when it comes to the amount of effort you need to put in, and just like a master's degree, you don't usually get paid for writing along the way. Keep working, keep honing your craft, keep learning how you can best express your ideas and I'll see you on the other side...the published author side.

**One notable exception is Orson Scott Card who, when asked if he sat down to write every day responded with something like "No. That sounds too much like work." Though he did mention that when he's writing a project he will average about 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the afternoon...hmmm that sounds suspiciously like a job after all.

How do I know if an idea is good enough to write?

I got this question the other day from a member of my writing group. "How do you guys determine which of your ideas to put in the drawer and which to devote time to? "

This is an interesting question. As I look back over what I've done I kind of have a process:

Usually I put every idea into the drawer. If I keep pulling it out then I start to consider it. Basically If the idea is cool enough to keep me interested it might be good enough to keep someone else interested. This is true of every story that I've finished, and especially my larger works. Here are a few signs that It might be interesting:

• I start making notes about the idea on scraps of paper 
• I imagine a short scene or a line of dialogue or a particular action sequence 
• I can imagine an ending or a direction for a story 
• It just gets under my skin so much that I want to tell someone else about it (though this is usually a bad idea because the other person can never see the whole picture in my mind, that's why I need a whole story to write it) ** 
• If the story is interesting enough to work on I start to judge the length. I don't know how other people do it, but I tend to have a good sense of how long I can write about something. Is there enough there to fill a whole movie? Is it just a short story? A novel? And epic? If you stop and think about it, you might be able to guess how much a single idea can last. 
• With a few scenes or conversations jotted down I then try to figure out a basic plot outline. If it's a short story this is usually in my head, if it's something longer then I write it down. 

Usually if the idea gets to the writing phase at all I push it all the way through. However, I currently have 3 and maybe 1 more project that I started seriously and haven't finished. Only one of those projects was started with a clear goal, and that goal was about 1/3 of the way through the book....incidentally I only finished 1/3 of that book.

In total I have 20 projects in my "This is cool enough to write about" box. Those are all ideas worth writing about. About 13 of those are full length novels, and two of those are series. This doesn't even include my scripts, board games, or other projects.

Another one of my group brought up the idea of many irons in the stove. I love that saying, but right now I can only concentrate on one iron at a time. I imagine that as I move forward into a career as a writer I will get back to working on multiple projects at a time, but right now I'm really focusing my energy on getting my current project right.

So to wrap this all up, I can tell if an idea is worth keeping if I can't get rid of it. I can tell if it's worth writing about if I write about it and I want to write more. I can tell if it is solid enough to write a book on if I can plot out a whole book (or a short story if that is your goal). If I balk at any one of those stages then I don't write. Ideas are easy, finding an idea that can carry you through an entire project is gold.

What are your ideas? How do you decide whether an idea is worth writing about?

** Writing out an idea is important, and no one really cares until the whole thing is done. I have a few ideas on the topic here. I heard recently that a writer begins a story, but only a reader can end it. Basically it's important to present a completed project if you want someone to see what you are thinking. Otherwise you're just using them as a brainstorming partner which is different than engaging them in a discussion about a complete idea.

Taking Criticism, or "Mommy, I can do it all by myself."

I'm meeting with a new writer's/critique group this week and someone brought up the topic of taking criticism. He mentioned a rule that I've heard numerous times, and it is this:

When taking criticism about your piece, shut up and listen.

He didn't say those exact words, but the idea is the same. If you submit your work for criticism or feedback then when you get the feedback you need to listen. I think there are some great reasons to have this rule, and I'll also list a few reasons why it might not be for you.

First, one main idea behind this is that there is an immediate impulse to defend or explain your work. Most often I have heard people say things like, "What I meant was...", "If you keep reading then you'll find out...", or "If you could see in my head then you'd see how perfect it really is."

Ok, that last one was an exaggeration. But that's what is happening. When you present your writing for evaluation it has to speak for itself. It's like sending your child out into the world, sometime you have to let him or her go. You won't be there to make excuses to every person they meet. Sometimes it is the reader, but listening to feedback is the only way you'll know what the reader thinks and feels. The message is out, and the reader can only receive what you sent.

When you get feedback you should listen to it, even if you don't agree. If you can get feedback from multiple sources then that's even better. When you get feedback that you think is way off base, listen to it and try to find out what the reader is saying. They might give horrible feedback, and they're probably extremely rude, ignorant, petty, or some other bad thing. However, most criticism usually has some usable basis.

I listened to an interview with Mary Robinette Kowal and she said that she usually gets a few kinds of feedback. Some she agrees with, some was just obvious and she missed it, and some of the feedback just makes her want to cuss. That last kind is often the most useful, if you can get to the bottom of it.

SO...don't talk when getting feedback. In the end you are the one who has the last say in your work. Listen to everyone you can and get as much feedback as possible. Then apply your skill as a writer. You are the artist. Your name is on the work. You can ignore them or listen to them, but you the only way you can change how they feel about the work is to change the work and let it speak for itself.

In the end,that's what this post is about. You've created something, and now your work is saying, "Mommy, I can do it all by myself."

Now, there are important times to talk with others about your work. For me that's an essential part of the creative process. I'll talk about that next post.

Symbols

I mentioned my book as a symbol in a prior post. I'd like to take a moment to elaborate on that. A symbol is something that stands in for something else. For a basic understanding of symbols you can look HERE. And don't give me any trouble for pointing you to Wikipedia. Wikipedia may not be the best source for knowledge, but it's a great place to start almost any research project. Plus, it's peer reviewed. How can you go wrong?

Back to symbols though. We use symbols to communicate. That's the only way we can. When we speak we use sounds as symbols to represent ideas. In writing we use letters as symbols for the sounds we make. Words are more complex symbols, and books are even more complex. Even at the book level it's just symbols.

Now two things to remember about symbols and communication:

1 - Even an entire book can be a single symbol. It's a symbol for the whole experience. When you talk to a friend about Harry Potter, or Mistborn, you don't have to recap the entire story each time. You just say "Hey, did you read that?" and they say "Yeah, dude. It was awesome!" The entire book itself has just become a symbol for your shared experience.

2 - Communication takes both sending and receiving. If you say something and no one hears then there is no communication going on. If I write a dozen novels and no one ever reads them then there is no communication going on. But as soon as the reading begins, the communication happens. The symbol is completed by the receipt. Otherwise it's not even a symbol because it communicates nothing. (If you write a secret code and you're the only one who can read it it's still a symbol because you become your own recipient.)

3 - Yeah, I know I said 2, but I like threes. It's my comedic training.

4 - Whoops. I guess I'm committed now....So here's the last point I'll make. When the symbol has been received, then it no longer belongs to the originator. When I read Harry Potter then it becomes a part of my intelligence. Joanne K. Rowling may have sent out the symbol, but the story is mine now. Along with every person who has read it. We all know that she wrote it, but we'll still get up in arms if someone makes a movie and changes some part that we felt was important. That's because it's now a shared symbol, and that's good. That's what writing is, communicating and creating a symbol. Then that symbol can be shared and used in further communication.

So, go create symbols. Communicate. Write something for someone else to read. Expand the discussion.

Good luck!