Oh, look, a Podcast!

I interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to check out this podcast about dialogue. Specifically, it's dialogue in sci-fi/fantasy, but some of the exercises they suggest can totally be applied to other genres. Here is the link. The podcast is only about fifteen minutes long, so it's short. And worth your time. Have fun.

NaNo Congrats

This is a late congratulations to those who participated in NaNoWriMo 2010. 

If you finished your draft, AWESOME JOB!  COOKIES FOR YOU!! 

If you stopped halfway through: DON'T GIVE UP NOW!  You can still finish!!!

If you completely and utterly failed:  KEEP GOING!  Continue your NaNo experience into December and January!  (January might be best, but I don't know your own personal schedules, so it could very well not be.)

And if you're unsure of what to do with your finished manuscript, there is a plethora of things you can do.  My personal favorite is printing out the entire thing and dropping it on a table.  The thump of the landing papers is very satisfying no matter how much you think it sucks.  The second thing would be to take a small break and start editing it.  It will call for a lot of rewriting of the scenes and reworking of dialogue and character development, but that's what writing is all about.  The magic happens with revisions, I say.  You can also forget you wrote the thing entirely, but that's completely your choice.  But why waste the idea and the month, you know?

Whatever you choose, I hope you succeed in completing that task.  Good luck on revisions and don't forget to be awesome.

Advice to Writers

 

I have made little to no progress in my readings and watchings.  In the meantime, I submitted a poem to this place and will soon submit a different piece of writing to another place.

 

Also, I found this article while browsing around my corner of the blogosphere.  Here is the link, and here are my favorite pieces of advice from different authors.  Yes, I’m picking and choosing, but I am an avid user of “muttered” and “exclaimed” and refuse to revert to such a bland word as “said”.  Does that make me a bad writer then?

 

Neil Gaiman

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

5 Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

6 Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

7 Laugh at your own jokes.

8 The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter

Andrew Motion

1 Decide when in the day (or night) it best suits you to write, and organise your life accordingly.

2 Think with your senses as well as your brain.

3 Honour the miraculousness of the ordinary.

4 Lock different characters/elements in a room and tell them to get on.

5 Remember there is no such thing as nonsense.

6 Bear in mind Wilde's dictum that "only mediocrities develop" – and challenge it.

7 Let your work stand before deciding whether or not to serve.

8 Think big and stay particular.

9 Write for tomorrow, not for today.

10 Work hard.

Ian Rankin

1 Read lots.

2 Write lots.

3 Learn to be self-critical.

4 Learn what criticism to accept.

5 Be persistent.

6 Have a story worth telling.

7 Don't give up.

8 Know the market.

9 Get lucky.

10 Stay lucky.

Helen Simpson

The nearest I have to a rule is a Post-it on the wall in front of my desk saying "Faire et se taire" (Flaubert), which I translate for myself as "Shut up and get on with it."

Jeanette Winterson

1 Turn up for work. Discipline allows creative freedom. No discipline equals no freedom.

2 Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether.

3 Love what you do.

4 Be honest with yourself. If you are no good, accept it. If the work you are doing is no good, accept it.

5 Don't hold on to poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out.

6 Take no notice of anyone you don't respect.

7 Take no notice of anyone with a gender agenda. A lot of men still think that women lack imagination of the fiery kind.

8 Be ambitious for the work and not for the reward.

9 Trust your creativity.

10 Enjoy this work!