Category: writing

Okay, look… tomorrow’s my birthday, and I ended up spending a lot more time than I thought I would at the DMV today. But—as I have in the past—I wanted to offer some thoughts that were less about writing-the-art and a bit more about writing-the-overall-sphere-of-community-and-career.

So at the risk of shooting myself in the foot… let’s talk a bit about writing advice.

Really, the whole reason I started scribbling out these little rants soooo many years back (my hair was still rich and full and dark back then) was because of writing advice. All I ever saw on various writing forums (novel and screenplay) was what I called “after advice.” It was all tips on how to get an agent interested, how to get your script in front of producers or actors, how to build word of mouth, and so on. Very, very little of that advice was about the big step that came before all of those.

Y’know… actually writing the damned thing.

But as social media became a thing, I noticed more and more people offering writing advice. As in, advice about the actual act of writing. Often in short, bite-sized, very catchy phrases.

And also… a lot of it very scattered.

I think we can all agree people write for a lot of different reasons. Some folks enjoy crafting stories. Some like elaborate wordplay. Some folks want to make some money, while others want to make a whole career out of it. There are people who just enjoy the act of creation. Writing can even be therapeutic in some cases, like a great purge, or maybe a way to relax, like sliding into a hot bath at the end of a long day.

And to be very clear, all of these are good, solid, completely valid reasons to write. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. If all I want to do is write Mandalorian fan fic… cool. If it’s what you want to write, write it! Done.

People write in a lot of different formats, too. We can do first person or third person omniscient or third person limited or even the often-elusive-but-goddamn-beautiful-when-done-well second person. We can write books, short stories, comics, stage plays, narrative podcasts, screenplays for film or broadcast television or streaming television. These are all great, with their own challenges and rewards.

Again, anyone who tries to tell you television writing is all schlock or comics are stupid, just… look, don’t resort to violence, but know that they’re wrong. Very wrong.

Now… one of the big problems that happens a lot with writing advice is survivorship bias. If you’re not familiar, it’s when we only look at people who succeed at a task rather than everyone who attempted the task. Which means it’s tough to recognize how many elements of that success were skill vs inherent talent vs surrounding circumstances vs just, y’know, sheer luck. I actually talked about this a bit on a previous birthday post, although I didn’t mention it by name– just because Jennifer Lawrence moved from Kentucky and became a Hollywood megastar doesn’t mean every young woman who moves from Kentucky to Hollywood will become a megastar. Which sounds kinda silly to say out loud, right? But survivorship bias is kinda silly when you point it out.

And sometimes folks don’t recognize their own survivorship bias. They don’t recognize that outside elements were a big part of their success. So their advice is, well, a bit off. Not deliberately, mind you. They’re saying “I did this and it worked for me, I achieved my goal, therefore this is the method that works.” Which clearly isn’t wrong—they are successful after all—but it’s also not exactly right. It’s not considering other factors that maybe can’t be replicated by the people receiving said advice.

Using myself as an example… yeah, a good part of my success comes from writing and studying writing (in many different forms) for most of my life. But having an agent definitely was a big factor. And in all fairness I only have an agent because a bunch of sheer-luck things happened to line up in my favor. And sad to say, yeah, but the fact that I’m a white guy probably helped too. I couldn’t tell you exactly when or how, but I’m definitely not going to discount it. This is part of the reason I give big disclaimers on most of my writing advice. My path to success was unique. I can offer some suggestions on how to duplicate parts of it, but a lot of it was completely out of my hands.

Another thing some folks don’t grasp is that a lot of advice isn’t good for every situation. I can tell you the best dryer setting is permanent press because it’s a good balance of speed, temperature, and gentle motion that will get things done in a reasonable amount of time but also not be too rough on colors and most fabrics. But… this is lousy advice if you were asking how to dry your phone because you accidentally dropped it in the pool.

And this is true of writing advice, too. Like I mentioned up above, people can write for a lot of different reasons, and if I’m just writing for the joy of artistic expression (again, nothing wrong with that) my advice might not be that helpful if you’re trying to write as a great psychological purge at the end of a bad week. I’ve mentioned before how some people will offer advice on structure, but they’re trying to apply television script structure advice to a novel’s narrative structure. Likewise, most of my writing advice here on the ranty blog is geared around the idea of starting a fiction writing career, so it’s probably going to seem very contrary to a person who’s much more interested in writing as an art. The kind of writing we’re doing is going to affect the advice we’re giving and the advice we’re looking for. There’s some stuff that’s universal, absolutely, but there’s also stuff that

When I’m getting some writing advice, I need to think about all of this. I want to consider that another writer’s advice may have bias. I should be aware that they’re offering me advice about this kind of writing when I want to do that kind of writing.

Speaking of which, one final thing. I know this may sound obvious but… maybe don’t take writing advice from people who don’t actually write? If they can’t point to some notable level of writing output related to the advice they’re giving… I’m just saying, maybe their “advice” is coming from a different place.

And that’s all I’ve got for you on this fine pre-birthday afternoon. Sorry again for the lack of posts here, but I’m hoping to be better in the coming months.

Of course, I’m saying that but I’m probably going to miss next week. Editing.

But after that… redemption. Finally.

Until then, go write.

And just like that, 2024 is over.

It was a rough year for me, personally (I got a little reminder of that this morning), but there were a lot of good things about it, too. It’s rare, I think, to have a year that’s all bad or all good, and a lot of how we think about it just comes down to how we decide to look back it and remember things.

There were a lot of plusses for me this year. Creatively. Socially. Hobby-ly? I’m going to try to focus on those.

So speaking of creatively… what did I get done this year?

Well, 2024 started with a massive rewrite of God’s Junk Drawer. David, my agent, read it at the end of 2023 and made a lot of really solid points. I cut almost 20k words, reorganized a bunch of it, then turned around and added 22K of new material. It’s going to be my biggest book ever. Well, ever published. We don’t need to talk about… the other one.

I finished a first draft of TOS which I’d had to set down (around 40K words) for the above rewrites. Then I did a second draft of it. And I’m maybe halfway into a third draft. It’s really good. I’m enjoying it a lot. I think you will, too. I’m hoping to show it to a few folks in a week or three.

I wrote a story for Weird Tales which was an all time, never-gonna-happen bucket list thing for me. Issue #370 with “Straw Man” is available now. If you’re more of an audiophile, you can get it that way, too, and hear my story read by the ever-wonderful Ray Porter.

I also wrote a new Carter & Kraft story for Combat Monsters, which is out in February. I’ve wanted to tell this one– “The Night Crew” –for a while and Henry Herz gave me the perfect chance to do it, and it fits in quite nicely between two of their previously published adventures. We’re doing a little signing tour for it, too.

And there were thirty-four assorted ranty writing blog posts (counting this one) and a dozen newsletters.

That may not look like much to some of you. I know there are some writers who are much more prolific than me. And other folks might be thinking “holy crap, that’s what he thinks is not much?!?”

But y’see Timmy—it doesn’t matter. I’m not telling you this to make you feel better or worse. You shouldn’t be judging yourself off me either way. Nobody is a better/ worse writer just because they managed to put down more or less words than someone else. What matters is that you keep doing it. Keep writing.

So I hope that’s what you plan to do in the coming year. Tell your stories your way. Let your voice be heard. Don’t stop.

Next time… it’s a new year. Who knows what we’ll do. What do you want to see here?

Until then… go write.

I’ve got a big birthday coming up—a double number birthday—so I’ve been thinking a lot lately about health and exercise. We’ve turned about half our garage into an exercise area, and I try to get out there at least three times a week (preferably four, but at least three) to stretch and do weights for 30 or 40 minutes. I’m also trying to be better about doing at least an hour on the treadmill. And if that fails, we also live right on a canyon, so there’s always a good hike right there.

Seems like a lot for an old guy, right? Well, part of this is my ongoing desire to see the 22nd century, but that’s a whole other story. A lot of it, though is just a general desire to exercise, well… everything. If you’ve been following me for a while, you may remember me talking about working with a physical trainer named Jerzy. He was really big on balance with his workouts. Some days were more reps, others were more about weight. Some days favored arms and shoulders, others favored legs and core.

He was big on working the body as a whole, because focusing too much usually meant getting kind of out of proportion. You’ve seen guys like that, right? The ones who over-work their arms and shoulders and usually end up, well, skipping leg day.

And a lot of time, this sort of partial exercise actually interferes with their actual goals. They want to look good, but they twist up their posture. They try to build stamina, but they actually end up weaker and slower because they’ve only worked out one or two parts of the bigger, overall system.

So what does all this exercise stuff have to do with writing?

I’ve met some people who do nothing but write. Write, write, write, write. I’ve seen pro writers brag about never taking vacations or even just a day off. Hell, years back I had one aspiring writer excuse their lack of familiarity with a popular book series by saying “real writers don’t have time to read.”

And I can’t help but notice that a lot of the time these folks… aren’t actually producing that much. For all their non-stop work, their output is… kind of average. In frequency and, well, quality.

Now, this is just my personal opinion, but I think in a lot of ways the brain works a lot like the rest of my body. I can exercise it and train it. Repetition can build good habits and reflexes.

But I can’t over-focus on just one aspect of it. Because that’s when things get off balance and grow… well, distorted. The exercise doesn’t help as much as it could because I’ve overworked that one element without working anything else.

You know what most of the other successful, prolific writers I know have in common? They’ve got other interests. I know writers who are into painting and photography and drawing. I know some who run, do martial arts, play basketball, box, and fence. A few of them are musicians. A bunch of them cook—like serious prep time, multiple-burners cook. And sooo many of them play games– video, tabletop, and miniature.

Me? I make a point to take at least one day off every week. A day to do something different. Something that lets me. I make my brain solve completely different types of problems than the ones it gets during the week. I tend to start the day with lawn and garden work, and then I build model robots and LEGO sets and paint little toy soldiers. I focus on shape and color and spatial relations

Plus, during lockdown, I got really into cooking. Italian food. Korean food. Pizza. I like making dinner for my beloved. I like that it requires actual prep and usually more than one pan. That happens several times during the week.

And yeah, I’m trying to squeeze in some exercise, too.

Take a moment. Take a breath. Try doing something else—anything else—and exercise a few different mental muscles. It’ll help your writing in the long run. Honest. And maybe try some actual exercise, too. Increasing blood flow is never a bad thing. That’ll help your writing, too.

Next time… well, like I said, I’ve got a birthday coming up, so I’ll probably bore you with some deep thoughts of some kind.

Oh! And StokerCon is a week from today. I’m not actually attending, but it’s right here in my city, barely ten minutes away. So I may lurk at the bar and say hi to some folks. Maybe you’ll be one of them.

Until then… go write.

If you’re reading this, it probably won’t come as a shock to you, but… people love stories. Literally, since the start of recorded history. They love reading them. Hearing them. Watching them. They love having their emotions played with and their expectations subverted, and they also love comfortable, familiar tales and they can sink abck . They love made up people and places and event that never happened.

Believe it or not, some people also love telling stories. Pulling people and places and moments out of their head and presenting them to an audience. They love the act of stringing these specific words together in this specific order and knowing it’s going to get that response.

Another thing people love is, well, easy solutions. If there’s a way we can get around doing some work, we’ll usually do it. Yeah, this takes sixteen steps, but is there a way I could do it in fifteen? Or maybe eight? Could I skip over the first dozen steps and maybe just do those last four?

But sometimes we just can’t cut corners. For complexity reasons or safety reasons or just because, look, this is how long it takes to do this. As much as we want ease and simplicity, there are some things in life that take time and effort.

So, with that in mind, let’s talk about the Warren Commission.

A week after the assassination of JFK in 1969, newly sworn-in President Johnson ordered Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the killings. Warren assembled a group of congressmen and specialists to gather evidence and quash all the conspiracy theories that were already starting to run wild throughout the country.

The Commission’s final report, alas, didn’t really help calm fears there was a big cover-up going on. One of the more controversial declarations it made was that a single shot caused all of the non-fatal wounds to both President Kennedy and Texas Governor Connally, a shot that changed directions multiple times during its flight. Even more amazing, said bullet was miraculously found on the floor in Connally’s emergency room, having supposedly fallen out of his bloody thigh, completely clean and not even deformed…

The popular term we got from this report, which you’ve probably heard before, was the magic bullet. A small, simple thing which defies every bit of common sense to produce borderline-miraculous results. Some might even say… magical results.

Some folks think to be a successful writer, it’s just a matter of finding a magic bullet. I mean, all these folks talk about spending years trying to “hone their craft” but it can’t actually be that difficult, right? Surely there’s a trick that’ll let me skip to the front of the line—an easy way to bypass all those early, boring stages—and get to the point where people are fighting over my manuscript.

So let’s talk about some of the magic bullets folks spend time looking for..

The magic word
Back when I read contest screenplays for food, a common thing to see was scripts entered into a very niche contest with clearly minor additions to make them fit the requirements of said niche contest. I saw countless stage plays that had a few camera directions sprinkled on them. More than a few token minorities and painted-on sexualities. My favorite, however, had to be the sex comedy that showed up in the pile for a faith-based, prayer-centric screenplay contest, where the protagonist desperately prayed to God oh please, please Lord, let me get this woman out of her clothes!

Storytelling doesn’t work this way, either with audiences or publishers. I can’t expect that using this word or that one (or this phrase or that label) is going to be an instant key to success. I definitely shouldn’t expect that it’ll make people overlook certain other glaring issues my work may have.

The magic genre
Pretty sure since the dawn of storytelling there’ve been folks trying to jump on the hot market bandwagon. Thag gets all the applause for his mammoth-hunting story? Well, Bron have mammoth hunting story, too! Two mammoths! With lasers mounted on skulls!

With the desire to make a sale, some folks try to follow the “hot” markets. Right now young adult science fiction is hot? Guess I’ll write YA sci-fi. Historical romance is hot? Did I mention my YA sci-fi is a time travel story with a historical romance element (mammoths in love)? What’s that? Horror adventure is hot? Guess I better dump the YA and start over

The issue here is timing. Even if I lunge at that hot new genre, there’s simply no way to get a manuscript done, polished, and in front of someone before the trend’s passed. Seriously, none. Especially when you consider most publishers are already working a year or so ahead of the current market.

Worth noting there are folks who write very timely books and they write them very fast, but a lot of them almost inherently don’t have much of a shelf life. They sell really well for a brief window and then usually never again. I need to decide if I’m okay with that. Assuming I even have the ability to do it

Don’t try to follow a market trend. Just write the horror/ romance/ faith-based/ mystery/ sci-fi story you want to tell and make sure it’s the absolute best one anyone’s ever read. That’s what’ll catch people’s attention and make hundreds of others rush to hop on my bandwagon.

The magic aesthetic
More than a few folks think the secret to success—real, worthy success—is to create art. Actual literature which will be recognized immediately for its inherent worth and my inherent genius. That deep, overwritten sort of art that makes grad students start to feel warm in the middle of intellectual discussions.

This one’s a double edged sword, because a lot of the folks going for this bullet end up taking it in the chest (I believe the gentleman ordered a metaphor, mixed over ice?). It’s my firm belief that attempts to create art usually lead to forced scenes, painful dialogue, and unbelievable characters. Plus, that same art then becomes a blanket excuse to let the writer brush off any comment or criticism their work may get. After all, only the sophisticated and intelligent people are going to understand art. If they don’t understand, it just proves they’re not intelligent and thus not qualified to judge it, right?

As I’ve said many times before—don’t try to create art. I just want to tell the best story I can the best way I can tell it. Let somebody else worry about if it’s high art or if it’s just some pedestrian, pop-culture crap that’s going to sell a million copies and get a movie deal.

The magic message
Close behind the above bullet is the belief a story needs to have a deep, powerful meaning. Every element should be loaded with subtext. Each page should make the audience rethink their beliefs.

While it’s great to have subtext, a writer shouldn’t be fighting to force it into their story. Likewise, if I’ve come up with a clever metaphor which applies to the catchphrase/ scandal/ fashion of the moment, much like the special genre above, odds are that ship will have sailed loooooong before anyone ever sees my work.

If I feel like my work has to have a greater meaning… maybe I should ask myself a few questions. Do I think it does, or am I trying to live up to someone else’s expectations? Will it still be relevant six months from now, or six years from now? Most importantly, does this greater meaning serve my story? Or is my story bending to this greater meaning?

The magic contact
One of the more common magic bullets you’ll see is networking. My writing’s irrelevant compared to knowing the right people who have the right jobs. For a long time it was (incorrectly) touted as the only way to succeed in Hollywood, and I think that belief spilled into prose writing as well. Some folks spend more time hunting down “contacts” than they do working on their writing.

Alas, active networking is dead. Any seminar, website, or app that promises me tons of networking opportunities will not offer a single useful one. I’m a big believer that the best networking only ever really happens by accident, and trying to do it defeats it immediately.

The people I want to make connections with are… well, the people around me. The folks I’m already talking to and hanging out with because I like them. And they like me because I’m not basing these relationships on a personal agenda, just on a shared interest of movies or toys or gardening or games or just weird shared life experiences. They’re the folks I’m more likely to help later on. And they’re going to be more likely to help me.

The magic software
I’ve talked once or thrice before about becoming too reliant on technology. There’s nothing wrong with using a spell-checker to double-check my work, but I shouldn’t be relying on it to actually know how to spell for me. Or to know which word I meant to use. Or to know what that word means vs what I think it means. Because… well, it can’t do that. Any any of that.

Seriously, how often have you had spellcheck tell you something’s wrong just because the word’s not in its vocabulary banks? Maybe it’s just a word that particular dictionary didn’t adapt yet. Maybe it’s an alternate but still widely -accepted spelling.

And now there’s also grammar checkers and style checkers and you may have even heard there are some fancy futuristic lines of code out there that’ll write the whole story for you. But the sad truth is, none of this stuff actually works. No, it doesn’t. They all understand “writing” in the same basic-competency way a second-grader does. They barely understand the rules, and they definitely don’t understand when and how to break the rules. They don’t understand context or subtext or nuance or, yeah, even basic vocabulary.

So anything these systems do for me, I’m pretty much going to have to double and triple check from every angle (if I actually care about it being good). I’ll need to actually know the spelling and the grammar and the style I’m going for, and I’ll need the patience to do it all line by line, rewriting as I go to make sure there’s consistency.

Which really means… I’m doing all the work anyway. So, y’know, maybe I could just cut out that legally/ ethically/ artistically questionable step and just start learning to do this stuff.

Y’see, Timmy, as I’ve mentioned once or thrice, there’s really no trick to writing (the Y’see Timmy means this is or big overall windup, for those of you who are new here). No secret words or key phrases or handshakes you need to know to get past the doorman. It’s just about being willing to put in the time and effort to become better at something. Some folks are. Some folks aren’t. Guess which ones tend to succeed more? Believe me, I say this standing with thirty years of literary garbage swirling in the wind behind me. The most terrible, derivative fanfic. Some truly God-awful sci-fi and fantasy tinged with high school angst and college melodrama. Heck, look back far enough and you’ll see three completely different versions of that long-lost American classic Lizard Men From the Center of the Earth.

So, there you have it. A handful of things you shouldn’t be spending time looking for. I mean, seriously, who spends their time trying to get hit by bullets?

Next time (assuming you survived all those bullets) I’d like to talk about baseball and Lindsay Lohan.

Unless you’ve got a better idea…?

Until then, go write.