Category: writing

Last night I was directed to a blog post that said self-publishers should not be allowed to call themselves authors.  Fighting words, I know.  It was a ham-fisted, blanket statement,  and I think it’s pretty tough to say something that broad without getting some deserved backlash.  Plus, in all fairness, the person who wrote it had a bunch of issues when it came to their own writing ability.  Then again, said writer wasn’t insisting on being called an author anywhere that I saw…

I found myself kind of agreeing with the general idea, though, if not the way it was delivered.  “Author” used to be a term that meant something.  It implied a degree of prestige, that someone had worked at their chosen art for years and been rewarded with a title.

Nowadays, though… no work needed.  I can just demand that title for doing well… anything.  Or nothing.

Take the Baboon Fart Story book.  If you’re not familiar with it, the story goes something like this.  Chuck Wendig made an offhand comment a while back that these days someone can just print the word “fart” 100,000 times, slap a picture of a baboon on the cover, and have it up on Amazon within the hour.  So, this being the internet, someone did just that.  Baboon Fart Story, clearly stating it was just the word “fart” repeated 100,000 times and referencing Wendig, was for sale on Amazon for about a day before someone at the company realized it was a mockery of their whole business plan and it was pulled for content reasons.  I think their official excuse was “a less than satisfactory reading experience.”

So, question for the floor… should the person who slapped Baboon Fart Storytogether be considered an author?  Has he or she earned that title with that book?  It was 100,000 words.  It even sold a couple dozen copies (some of the equally humorous reviews on Amazon were verified purchases).

Baboon Fart Story.  Author or not?

Now, let me spare some of you a bit of time.  I’m sure someone’s leaping down to the comments right now to explain that Baboon Fart was just a joke.  A not-very elaborate joke to illustrate a point.  Heck, it was really just an exercise in cut-and-paste.

To which I say, whoa!  Are we now putting definitions on what counts as a book?  On who gets to call themselves an author?

Of course we are.

As I’ve said many times over on my ranty blog, most of us know how to cook, but very few of us would consider ourselves chefs.  I make a fairly good almost-from-scratch pizza and decent stir-fried rice, but I’d never call myself a chef.  Someone would have to be arrogant as hell to insist we call them a chef because they poured orange juice and heated up waffles in the toaster.  Because we all understand that chef is a title which reflects a certain degree of experience and education past the commonly-known basics. 

Are there self-published writers who deserve to be called authors?  Absolutely and without question.  There are some phenomenally talented and practiced people who’ve chosen to go that route, and they’ve earned that title a hundred times over.  I’d argue the point with anyone who tried to say otherwise.

Does everyone who self-publishes immediately and automatically deserve the title of author?  No.  No, they do not.  Because being an author means something, and it’s more than “able to upload files.”  It implies someone doesn’t just have a base ability to write—or to cut and paste—but a certain level of experience and ability with words.  The exact definition is changing with some of these new paths, but it’s still there.  And it should be there. And we should all be happy it’s there and strive to earn it.

            I keep coming back to spelling.  There’s a reason for that.  Talk to any editor, publisher, contest director, or producer and they’ll say the number one problem they see in writing is spelling and grammar.  No matter what the story is, lots of manuscripts get rejected because the raw number of mistakes make them look amateurish and unprofessional.  It’s not the only reason they get rejected, granted, but I’d put money down that it’s a major factor in most rejections.  There’s a reason I lump such things into the 50% rule.

            I can’t be a chef if I can’t distinguish between chicken and turkey.  If I can’t tell an alternator from a carburetor, my career as a mechanic is going to be very short-lived.  And if I want to succeed at this writing thing—not in a spiritual way or a making-Dad-proud way or an I’ll-show-my-ex way, but in a serious, financial, this isn’t just a hobby way—I need to know how to use words.  There’s no way around it.  None.

            So here are some words that get misspelled—or misused—a lot.  And the writer doesn’t know, because they don’t know how to spell.  They just use a spell checker, because they thing it will never, ever mace a mistake… even if they did.

            The list is going to be a bit shorter this time around.  One of my regular contest-reader sources cut back on his hours a bit, and I haven’t read as much as I wanted to the past few months.  But my regular rules still hold—pretty much all of these words come from major websites, screenplays, or manuscripts.  Two of them are from published books.  My definition is for the word they thought they were using.  So if you’ve got a good vocabulary, you’ll probably get a chuckle or three over these.

            Pick up your signaling devices and….

solid and soiled – you only want to step on one of these things

foul and fowl – one of these tastes like chicken

balaclava and baklava – only one of these should be on your head

grisly and gristly – one of these is a tough piece of meat

grizzly and grisly – one of these is a bear

bear and bare – one means to endure or tolerate

passed and past—one of these means you didn’t get the promotion

definitely and defiantly – one of these is absolutely correct

succeed and secede – one of these means your state ends up alone

succession and secession – one of these is the process of ending up alone

due and do – one of these you pay

capital and capitol – one of these is money in the bank

            Did you know all of them?   

            Bonus round.  Which of these words get applied to a horrific scene?  Which one’s a tasty dessert?  If I owe money, which two of these words will probably be on my next bill?

            As I’ve mentioned many times before, it’s not enough just to know the words I’m asking about.  As a writer, I need to know all of them.  These are the tools of my trade, and I can’t be half-assed with them.  Knowing three ingredients in a recipe and winging it with the rest just doesn’t work.  If I’m going to call myself a chef, I’ve got to know them all.

            Because if I don’t know my words, my story starts to become muddled and unclear.  And I can’t be lazy and say “people will understand it from the context,” because using the wrong words changes the context.  If Phoebe decides togrin and bear it, it means she’s not going to let on how much the current situation is getting to her.  If she decides to grin and bare it, though, it means she just pulled her shirt open in a moment of naughtiness.  That changes the whole tone of the scene, and it could really change our view of Phoebe as a character.  So to speak.

            I need to learn to spell.  Me.  Not my spell-checker, not Dictionary.com.  Me.  The more I depend on someone else to do it for me, the weaker I am as a writer.  And if I’m a weak writer who’s decided to partner up with an idiot, well…

            Next time, I’d like to offer a quick tip I came up with while down at ConDor a few weeks ago.

            Until then, go write.

            Actually, those are pretty good excuses.

            So, while I finish getting caught up, Thom Brannan has offered to step in with a post about scheduling your writing time.

            (maybe I should’ve read this two weeks ago…)

* * *

            Hello is all right.

            I know, I know. You came here to glean some of Peter Clines’ wisdom, and what the hell is this? Right? I’ll do my best to keep your disappointment to a minimum.

            My name is Thom Brannan, and some of you know me from Cthulhu Unbound, some from Survivors, some from Pavlov’s Dogs, and some from filing restraining orders. Some of you don’t know me from Adam. This should help.

            I’m here in Pete’s blog to help you with your writing. I’m not a guru, and if you’ve read my work, you’d probably agree. I’m probably only a notch above “adequate.” But one thing I do well is produce. I am a productive individual for someone who does not write for a living. And the reason for this is scheduling. So, I’m here to talk about scheduling and its importance for writers (and for any other creative endeavor, really) in my experience.

            (It should be worthwhile to note, for the rest of this blog entry, whenever I say “it’s this way,” or “this is what works,” I’m speaking of what I’ve experienced for myself and through others. I have no guru hat.)

            The first thing to realize is we are creatures of habit, all of us. Good habits, bad habits, everything in-between. It’s hard to break habits, so rather than suggesting you alter something about yourself that may require the assistance of a psychiatrist, let’s talk instead about forming good habits, which will hopefully be just as hard to break.

            Pete has hammered home the point: to be a writer, you must write.  I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve found that doing it at the same time every day helps the process. Your body and mind know when it’s time to do something. There are things you do so often and so insistently that you feel off if you’re not doing them. Liken the creative process to a workout, and you’ll see what I mean.

            These things are part of your daily routine, and if you are fortunate to be able to carve out a niche in your day for writing, you should definitely do so. Allow me to share with you my experience.

           After finishing work on Survivors, I had the opportunity to write a novel for the same audience. I leapt at the chance, and after wrestling with several ideas (and gathering input from friends) I chose one and got started.

            I’d written before, but always for myself, or to have a Cthulhu Mythos story in my back pocket for whenever an anthology opened, or what have you. I had never written with a deadline before. Now, I know myself pretty well, and I know this is how I am: if you give me a deadline, that’s when I’ll turn it in. If you wanted it earlier, you’d have made the deadline earlier. Right? Right. That’s kind of crappy, and I want to change that.

            So, to that end, I tried something new and scheduled myself some writing time. And, to keep myself honest, I tracked my daily and weekly progress in an Excel file. The first week, I averaged about twelve hundred pages a day, say five pages in standard manuscript format.  That seemed pretty good to me, and in keeping with Robert B. Parker’s self-enforced rule.

            My second week of writing at the same time every day yielded slightly better results: eight pages a day. By week three, I was up to thirteen pages a day. By the last week of working on the novel, I was churning out eighteen pages a day.

            I leaned to take the weekends off, which allowed the grey matter to decompress, and it kept me from burning out. I also only do this four weeks at a time, with four weeks off in between.  

            To date, when working on a solo project, I write an average of twelve SMF pages a day. Slightly less when collaborating, but that’s to be expected. Compared to a powerhouse wordfount like Eric S. Brown, it’s not very much. But if I compare it to my previous output of one or two pages a week, it’s a vast improvement.

           I’ve also found that if I sit and play my guitar for five or ten minutes before writing, that primes the pump, so to speak. But that’s me. Everyone has something different to get them started when it comes to write. I’ve read that Hemingway would leave off in the middle of a sentence. The proprietor of this very blog makes sure he has something left over from today’s writing time so he can write tomorrow.

            So, there you have it. My 2¢ on scheduling. If I’m back at some point, I’ll likely blather on about collaborating.

            Until then… well, you know what Pete says here.

            As I often do at the start of the year, I wanted to blab on for a minute or three about what I try to accomplish with this little collection of rants and ravings.  And I think one of the best ways to accomplish that is to start off by mentioning a few things I won’t be doing here.

            First and foremost, this page isn’t about “when you’re done.”  I’m always coming across blogs and message boards where people want to know what to do with their finished manuscript.  How do I get an agent?  How do I promote myself?  How do I get an “in” with a publisher?  Should I self-publish?  How do I get blurbs?

            None of that here.

            Speaking of which, I also don’t use this page for self-promotion.  I may mention stuff that’s new or noteworthy, but that’s about it.  No sales or contests or interviews (not with me, anyway).  There’s some Amazon links on the side, yeah, but those are almost more for credentials purposes than sales.

            (Although if you want to buy them, I’ll never object to that…)

            Not to sound harsh, but this page also isn’t for inspirational ideas, mindless encouragement, or a joyous celebration of art.  I’m not really big on the special snowflake, “we can all succeed” mindset.  To be honest, I think it’s one of the most damaging things out there on the internet.  I’m also not a fan of those folks who see writing as some wild, bohemian expression of art where there are no wrong answers or directions.  They’re not far behind the special snowflake people.  If that’s the kind of “advice” you’re looking for… wow, this is so not the place you want to be.

            So, with all that out of the way… what is this place supposed to be about?

            Well, it struck me many years back that there aren’t many places online to find actual help with writing.  Not useful help, anyway.  Yeah, all that other stuff is important, but the writing is the big thing.  Nothing else matters if my writing is sub-par.  I can do tons of research on surfboards, wetsuits, skegs, surf wax, wave formation, and all that.  Thing is, if I don’t take the first step of leaving Nebraska, that’s all pointless information.  If I don’t have a decent book or script, it doesn’t matter how much work I put into self-promotion.

            I look around and I see a lot of folks making mistakes.  Sometimes it’s from inexperience.  Sometimes it’s from following bad advice.  And a few times… okay, sometimes I have no clue where people are getting their information from.  None whatsoever.

            I also see some would-be gurus offering hard-fast “rules” for writing.  Your characters must do this.  This element of your plot must unfold by this page.  And it gnaws at me because they’re just plain wrong.  There are a lot of rules in writing, but it’s not all rules.  If it was,  writing would just be mechanical fill-in-the blanks (granted, it seems like it is for some people).  One of the biggest things to realize is which rules can and can’t be ignored.  It’s finding the methods and styles that work for you within the frameworks that work for everyone else.

            That’s what this is all about.  Taking that idea in your head and fleshing it out and turning it into a few dozen or a few hundred coherent pages.  Hopefully pages other people will want to read all on their own without you begging or pleading or tricking them into it.

            Heck, maybe they’ll even pay you for those pages.

           So sometimes I point out the places where you really have to do this, but also the places where it’s entirely up to you.  Every now and then I’ll talk about a  recurring mistake I see a lot.  And most of the time I’ll just toss out a few ideas on how to work with (or work around) different issues that can come up when writing a short story or novel or screenplay.  Issues like spelling or structure or dialogue or characters or action or point of view or… well, there are a lot of them.

            Anyway, what makes me qualified to say these things and toss out these tips?

            Well, I’ve been trying to do this for over thirty years now.  I was stabbing at the keys on my mom’s old Smith-Corona before most of you ever considered writing as anything more than homework.  I tried to write my first book in third grade, then another one in seventh grade, plus two while I was in high school.  I spent years poring over different writing magazines and journals, pulling out every tip and hint and suggestion I could, and then trying all of them out (even the contradictory ones).  I took writing classes in high school and college.  I joined writing groups.  I made two attempts at the college novel, then the after-college novel, and then the “moved to California” novel.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say I probably submitted more manuscripts with paper and postage than at least half of you have done through the miracle space-age technology of email.

            And it all led somewhere.  I received personal rejection letters from editors at magazines and comic books encouraging me to try again.  One of my college writing professors, the multi-award winning novelist John Edgar Wideman, told me with absolute certainty that I was going to make it as a writer.  The first script I wrote got me a meeting with Ron Moore (of Deep Space Nine and later Battlestar Galactica).  Agents asked to look at my manuscripts.

            More to the point, people eventually started to pay me for my writing.  It’s not the only yardstick for success, granted, but I think we can all agree it’s the one that’s universally accepted and pretty much always has been.  My ability to write got me a job as an entertainment journalist.  I sold short stories to journals and anthologies.  I’ve sold half a dozen books to Permuted Press, and later to Crown Publishing, a division of Random House—and some of those books have sold very, very well and received a lot of praise (okay, so there’s a little self-promotion).  Amazon Studios hired me to develop a screenplay idea for them and write up a treatment.  For the past six years, I’ve supported myself by stringing words together in a way that pleased people enough that they paid me to keep doing it.

            So… that’s what I’m bringing to the table.

            If you’re interested, stick around.  Next time I want to talk a bit about the BFG-9000 plasma rifle in the forty-watt range and other firearms.

            Until then… go write.