The best advice I ever heard on writing was, "Write three sentences a day, every day, without fail." Let's think about this. Some people say, "Set a time and write at that time every day." But it can be hard to find a spot free that's the same time every day. This can lead to missing days and easy excuses. Some people simply say, "Write every day." In this one, there is no tangible goal. As humans, we tend not to accomplish goals without some tangible aspect. If you say write a page every day, that's good, but sometimes it can be hard to do a whole page. You could say write an hour every day, but what if nothing comes to you and you sit there for the whole hour accomplishing nothing?
Why does three per day work best? Everyone can write three sentences per day no matter what. There is no excuse for missing this. I don't care who you are, if you can't find a way to write three sentences per day, then you shouldn't even try to be a writer. This gives you a tangible goal that you can accomplish every day that is not set too high. Once you've written three, you're done for that day. How much easier could it be? It is approachable. I only have to sit down and hammer out three quick sentences today, then I'm done. Something like a full page can be daunting on a stressful, busy day, making you say "Oh, I'll just do two pages tomorrow." Bad news. The second you tell yourself you'll make it up tomorrow, you are in a big hole that's going to take a lot of climbing to get out of. Don't go there; it's not pretty -- trust me.
What is the philosophy behind writing only three sentences a day? The philosophy is that most people's hardest problem getting started writing every day. Once they get started, they are going to keep going. Three sentences is all it takes to get the creative juices flowing and to get you in the mood. Still, if you really aren't in the mood, you are three sentences closer to the end, and you didn't "break the chain." (Google search "Jerry Seinfeld Don't Break the Chain") It's so much easier to keep the habit of writing if you do it every day, even on the bad, unproductive days. You continue to produce. I dare anyone out there who only writes when they are in the mood or doesn't write for a living to write three sentences a day for a full month. You'll either not succeed or be hooked for life. Now what are you waiting for reading this thing? Go out there and write three sentences!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
When's the Best Time to Write?
I'm sure everyone has different opinions on when to write and why it's best to write then. First, I'd like to say that if you've found something that works for you, stick to it! If it ain't broke, don't fix it. On the other hand, maybe we aren't as productive or inspired in the time slot we have made for ourselves to write in.
Write when you are most focused, concentrated, or creative (i.e. peak performance). I believe that these occur at the same time for a given person, but it varies from person to person. Right now, I prefer writing at night to in the morning. The general rule of thumb is that the younger you are, the later in the day you will achieve your peak performance (see source). In fact, "lazy teenagers" that sleep all day are in fact biologically programmed that way. It isn't their fault or laziness. They are most awake later in the day and most tired earlier in the morning. The opposite tends to be true of adults. Adults are most focused and awake in the morning but become tired earlier.
Source: Learning and Memory, Anderson
Write when you are most focused, concentrated, or creative (i.e. peak performance). I believe that these occur at the same time for a given person, but it varies from person to person. Right now, I prefer writing at night to in the morning. The general rule of thumb is that the younger you are, the later in the day you will achieve your peak performance (see source). In fact, "lazy teenagers" that sleep all day are in fact biologically programmed that way. It isn't their fault or laziness. They are most awake later in the day and most tired earlier in the morning. The opposite tends to be true of adults. Adults are most focused and awake in the morning but become tired earlier.
Source: Learning and Memory, Anderson
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Why is Science Fiction Good Literature?
I know what you're thinking: ugh, not this topic! It's a good starting place though. I get to express my views, and you get to patiently wait until you can comment on this post and tear me apart. Let me take a nontechnical approach to the subject and build it up based on the industry rather than evaluating different books on different merits.
What's happening in the science fiction industry right now? Well, the competition is fiercer than ever before, competing with movies, TV, netflix, ebooks (that people can easily find for free), computer games, new gaming technology (Playstation 17 with direct neural linkups), etc. Science Fiction (sf) writers have competition with other industries, but they also have competition with other sf authors. I don't know the exact figures, but I'm sure there are more people submitting manuscripts today than there were 50 years ago.
How did science fiction get such a bad name? That's pretty simple: when it first came about, either the authors were technical writers coming from careers in science or they were literary but didn't know anything about science. Meaning a lot (but certainly not all!) of early sf was bad writing with good science or good writing with bad science, making for a pretty crappy read either way. Thus, first impressions stick, and the high and mighty literary people who read some of the bad writing extrapolated and assumed it was all like that (which I have to admit, I probably would do the same). So, yes, at one point sf was a new field and was just starting out and was not very good.
What is sf like right now? Lot's of competition means the editors/publishers have lots of choices. They don't have to settle for bad writing anymore. In fact, they must publish things that are both good science and good writing in order to compete with everything else a reader would rather be doing. Not only that, but readers demand good literature out of publishers now. No one will tolerate bad writing now that they've had a taste of the good stuff. Plain and simple, you must write good literature as a sf novelist (or short story-ist) to even get published in the present day.
One thing that I'm not saying is that sf is literary in the sense of Pynchon, DeLillo, Ford, Moore, Wallace, or the countless others. Every sf novel would be over 1,000 pages long if they had to follow that tradition and still get everything else in there that makes sf unique from mainstream literary fiction. Of course science fiction and literary fiction are different! But anyone who studies literature, I dare them to pick up a Vonnegut novel (who actually published in the 50's, 60's, and 70's -- back when sf still had some issues) and tell me that it doesn't read similar to a literary novel from the 60's.
What's happening in the science fiction industry right now? Well, the competition is fiercer than ever before, competing with movies, TV, netflix, ebooks (that people can easily find for free), computer games, new gaming technology (Playstation 17 with direct neural linkups), etc. Science Fiction (sf) writers have competition with other industries, but they also have competition with other sf authors. I don't know the exact figures, but I'm sure there are more people submitting manuscripts today than there were 50 years ago.
How did science fiction get such a bad name? That's pretty simple: when it first came about, either the authors were technical writers coming from careers in science or they were literary but didn't know anything about science. Meaning a lot (but certainly not all!) of early sf was bad writing with good science or good writing with bad science, making for a pretty crappy read either way. Thus, first impressions stick, and the high and mighty literary people who read some of the bad writing extrapolated and assumed it was all like that (which I have to admit, I probably would do the same). So, yes, at one point sf was a new field and was just starting out and was not very good.
What is sf like right now? Lot's of competition means the editors/publishers have lots of choices. They don't have to settle for bad writing anymore. In fact, they must publish things that are both good science and good writing in order to compete with everything else a reader would rather be doing. Not only that, but readers demand good literature out of publishers now. No one will tolerate bad writing now that they've had a taste of the good stuff. Plain and simple, you must write good literature as a sf novelist (or short story-ist) to even get published in the present day.
One thing that I'm not saying is that sf is literary in the sense of Pynchon, DeLillo, Ford, Moore, Wallace, or the countless others. Every sf novel would be over 1,000 pages long if they had to follow that tradition and still get everything else in there that makes sf unique from mainstream literary fiction. Of course science fiction and literary fiction are different! But anyone who studies literature, I dare them to pick up a Vonnegut novel (who actually published in the 50's, 60's, and 70's -- back when sf still had some issues) and tell me that it doesn't read similar to a literary novel from the 60's.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Complaints About Web Address
Wow, I'm starting off with the stereotypical angry blog post. That should provide some motivation to make the rest of it nontraditional. I can't believe it's almost 2008 and anyone who used a spin off web address of "Write? Wrong!" such as writewrong, write-wrong, etc. Posted in 2004 as their most recent entry. Anyway, hopefully my millions of adoring fans won't get too confused when they forget what my web address is and have to start guessing because they forgot to bookmark it.
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