WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE THE MUSE
I talked recently about the muse, and how one friend believes the muse is just a made up term, an excuse for not writing. It’s an excuse for writer’s block.
Whatever term you want to use, your inspiration has to come from somewhere.
The other day, I was on one of my forums and someone posted the question asking everyone for ideas on what to write about. They ran out of ideas, couldn’t think of where to start, or just wanted a fresh idea other than their own.
My answer was (in a nutshell) that if you had to ask, you either needed to give up for a while, or find another genre to write in.
Why?
If you’re so uninspired that you can’t think of a thing to write about, you shouldn’t be writing.
Period.
There’s no point struggling. Whatever you DO write will just be forced, and it will show.
FOR BETTER OR WORSE
The whole point of writing for pleasure is to write for pleasure. Unless you’re a professional, in which you’re given assignments and have goals and subjects, you’re doing this on your own.
By doing it on your own, it’s supposed to be fun, to be inspired, to be something you WANT to do.
If you have to ask others for ideas, it’s not you. You’re now writing for everyone else, not yourself. Your inspiration isn’t you anymore.
For better or worse, you’re no longer doing it for pleasure, you’re doing it because you think you have to. Or, you’re taking the mercenary approach.
HOW DID WE ALL START?
Some of us started with a specific goal in mind. Granted, this goal might not have been the most inspired of intentions. Say, to write a memoir.
Rather than dictate it to someone else, say…a stranger, you decided to take up writing and do it yourself. It’s like a one-time project. One-and-done.
Then there are those of us who love to read and are inspired to tell our own stories. We take up the task of learning to write so we can get our stories out there.
There are every variety of extremes in-between as well.
When we take up writing, go through the trouble/work/hassle of learning to write, then don’t have any more ideas, what then?
Why bother?
NEVER OUT OF IDEAS
While this individual asking the question the other day is far from alone, I cringe every time I hear questions like that. I actually hear that type of question more than you might imagine. Since I participate in several writing forums, questions on “what should I write about?” pop up all the time.
Most of the time I don’t respond, but once in a while I feel compelled to say something. I don’t mean it in a malicious way, but if you’re a writer, why?
I’ve been at this for twenty plus years, and there’s no way in my lifetime I’m ever going to be able to complete the novels and/or short stories for all the ideas I have, all the plot lines I’ve mapped out in my head, all the inspirations (muses) I’ve bounced around. It’s all a matter of harnessing the best ones and the ones I can recall when it’s time to sit down and commit to one.
I sincerely feel for those writers that have to get on line and ask the writing community to give them ideas of what to write about. If they’re that uninspired or that lacking in ideas, they need to seriously re-think why they’re a writer at all. Maybe they just need a mental kick in the pants. Maybe they’re brimming with ideas but they’re so disorganized, it’ll take something to bring them to the surface. Maybe there’s stress in their life that’s blocking those ideas.
Or, maybe they just picked the wrong passion to pursue. Maybe they need to take up woodworking, sewing, bike riding, or tennis?
SUMMARY
Writing isn’t for everyone. To be a writer, you have to have something to write. If you’re just a blank slate and have to ask everyone else what to write about, maybe you could succeed as a technical writer, albeit, an uninspired one. As a fiction writer, you probably need to find another passion.
Happy “inspired” writing!
GRAMMAR LESSON SEVEN
We’re back with another set of similar sounding words with entirely different meanings.
Our illustrious former Henderson Writer’s Group el-presidente, Linda Webber, has been presenting grammar lessons each week on the back of our meeting agendas. The gist of them are the improper use of words.
As a reminder, I’ll add the standard intro below before I get into the word list.
BACK IN THE DAY
I once wrote a screenplay with my bud, Doug Lubahn, a famous musician. During our correspondence, I once told him I was waiting with “baited” breath instead of “bated” breath. He’s never let me live that one down.
The proper use of words is something a lot of (especially) new writers don’t always get. So, for your reading pleasure, below is a list of words and how to use them properly.
The list is not near complete, so that’s why this is called Grammar Lesson Seven.
Once again, my many thanks to Linda Webber, who has gone through the trouble to compile these words all in one place for me to steal and present to you here at Fred Central.
These are common words that are often used out of context. They can be a quandary for a writer, and a quick trip to a dictionary, or on line.
COMMON SIMILAR SOUNDING WORDS (WITH ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MEANINGS)
Loath Reluctant, unwilling
She was loath to eat the burger.
Loathe To hate
I loathed getting a haircut.
Loose To unfasten: To set free
She let the squirrel loose and it scampered off
Lose To be deprived of, to be unable to find
If you don’t put your wallet back in your pocket, you’re going to lose it.
Meter A measuring device
The gas meter showed a large consumption the past month.
Metre A metric unit, rhythm in verse
Carl tried to get the metre of the chorus so he could keep up with the song.
Militate To be a powerful factor against
The two parties’ views militate against a common core of reference.
Mitigate To make less severe
Because he gave them the location of the loot, that mitigated his sentence to six months instead of a year.
Palate The roof of the mouth
The pudding slid smooth against his palate.
Palette A board for mixing colors
She dabbed three colored paints together on the palette and created ochre.
Pedal A foot-operated lever
Randy had never used a clutch pedal before and when he tried, he stalled the truck.
Peddle To sell goods
Oscar peddled dry goods at the fair.
Council A group of people who manage or advise
The city council voted on the measure three to one.
Counsel Advice, or to advise
I really appreciated my dad’s counsel when I was growing up, though I didn’t show it much.
Cue A signal for action or a wooden rod
Stephanie took her cue from the director and hit the stage.
Queue A line of people or vehicles
The queue to get in to see the Tut exhibit was over a mile long.
Curb To keep something in check or a control or limit
I’ve been told to curb my enthusiasm by my pessimistic friend.
Kerb In British English it’s the stone edge of pavement
Sally tripped over the kerb when she crossed the street.
Currant A dried grape
My best friend loves currant pie, but I can’t stand it.
Current Happening now, or a flow of water, air or electricity
Jack eased the dingy out into the river where the current pushed it further downstream.
Defuse To make a situation less tense
The cops came in to defuse the situation, but their uniforms only added to the tension.
Diffuse To spread over a wide area
The dandelion spread in a diffuse pattern over the lawn.
SUMMARY
Once again, thanks to Linda Webber for her hard work putting these original words together!
Happy writing!
DOES A BLOG REALLY DO ANY GOOD?
On one of the forums I participate in, someone asked the question about the value of a blog. Apparently, she’s not gained any spectacular results from hers. I’ve had Fred Central going since 2012, and I can attest to that in many ways. My results have been less that spectacular compared to some, and I don’t mind saying so.
You may wonder why I don’t just give up. Why do I spend the $26 a year to keep loading this site with more and more info that relatively few people ever bother to look at? Others seem to put little effort into their sites and get thousands of hits a day.
Several reasons.
I don’t give up easily.
I love to write.
I just don’t give a crap about the numbers.
I HAVE had some positive results in all this effort and that’s all that matters to me.
HAS ALL THIS HELPED SELL MY BOOKS?
The main purpose of a web site isn’t necessarily to sell your books as much as to be a central clearing house for information on you, your books and what’s going on. Maybe in the good old days the web site might’ve been the go-to place for the author. However, with the advent of social media, it seems like web sites have gone out of fashion. Sites like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram get much more media scrutiny, as well as other marketing tools.
I can’t swear that my web site has helped me sell any of my books. Not a one. Maybe, but you couldn’t put me on the stand and have me swear to it.
On the other hand, even though my marketing on Facebook seems to have, for the most part, been a dismal failure, I have at least verified some results from that. I’ve verified sales.
I have pages on my site for each of my books. To help market them, I post a weekly snippet about each one, leaving a link on their Facebook page drawing them here. Maybe people read them, maybe not. My stats don’t show either way, at least so far.
SO, WHY DO I DO IT?
Way back when, the technology and the media was different. Every author was encouraged to develop a web site and a blog. That still holds today, but the emphasis on their use might’ve shifted a bit. Some authors don’t have web sites anymore, and just have social media. Others are old school, have no social media at all, and go for a blog. Others have no internet presence at all, and seem to do just fine.
Me, being of the relatively late fledgling internet crowd, as I call it, developed my Word Press web site, and decided to make it multi-purpose. I wanted something I could use for all my different genre books, and also use for my other interests. It would be a central location for my hobbies as well.
A funny thing happened along the way. Over the years, I’ve found my hits on the web site have varied from specific articles on my blog, to my hobby pages.
Yup, sometimes, certain blog articles got all the hits, while at other times, my hobby pages overwhelmed my blog articles.
Go figure.
In any case, my hits are nothing to brag about, but nothing to quit over. I can say it’s nothing in the thousands, like some people I know.
A steady trickle that varies from day to day, week to week, month to month.
I have a steady group of followers. I also follow back a lot of them.
That’s enough to encourage me to keep going. Plus, I have received feedback and results.
LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
Numbers that would discourage most, have no effect on me.
Why?
Results.
Once in a while, I get feedback. Sometimes it’s direct notes to my web site. Most of the time though, it’s private e-mails or off-had comments face-to-face through people I meet.
Someone read one of these articles here and got something useful out of it.
That, folks, is the reason I’m here.
Plus, some of these articles are re-posted on the newsletter Writer’s Tricks Of The Trade, the quarterly put out by my friend Morgan St. James.
This all means that somehow, somewhere, my blathering about writing is doing some good, having an impact.
That, my friends, is what I’m here for. That, is why I haven’t given up since starting this blog in 2012. That, is why I keep writing about writing.
Happy writing!
EVOLVING INTO HUMDRUM – RUNNING A SERIES DRY
I originally posted this article in 2015 when Fred Central was only three years old. I was about to publish my first book, Treasure Of The Umbrunna and I received a lot of questions about whether it was going to be a trilogy. Why? Because it was a fantasy and because of Lord Of The Rings, everyone assumed I’d follow that pattern. Nope. Just like with my Gold series and Lusitania Gold, which saw publication in 2017, trilogy has never entered the picture.
This brings up the thought of a series, how long it should be and how to keep it going. The best writers can keep them going (it seems like) forever, while others burn out relatively fast.
Why burn out?
The characters evolve too far.
Below is the original article, tweaked with my latest thoughts, especially since I now have three books under my belt with no sign of stopping.
ORIGNAL INTRO
I think back to when I first joined the Air Force. I was a terrible Airman as far as military bearing. However, I loved being a mechanic, especially when it came to electrical stuff. In fact, I was good enough that my bosses tended to overlook my personal foibles with my wrinkled uniform and ratty hair because I got things fixed. The other side of the coin was that because I got things fixed, and because I had a natural ability with multiple choice tests, I worked myself right out of what I loved doing. In one respect, I shot myself in the foot. On the other hand, I did my body a world of good and though I’m paying for it now with plenty of health issues, it could’ve been worse. The point is that I evolved. That made me think of characters in series that evolve. The intent is well-meaning, but the end result can ruin a good thing.
BANDS
I think about some of my favorite rock bands. I often loved their first few albums, but then the musicians got bored, or decided to evolve their sound to become more commercial. They changed into something I didn’t like as much. I look at the huge album shelf next to me, as I type this, and see bands with one or two (out of five or more) albums that are great, while the rest are just meh. The thing is, those meh albums are usually their biggest sellers. Go figure. Then again, after those big sellers, the bands faded as musical tastes changed and the groups broke up for various reasons.
TV SHOWS
TV shows usually have a much shorter shelf life. The first few episodes start with a bang. That’s the thing that attracts audiences to them in the first place. Then, the writers and the audience get bored. Pressure is on to “evolve” the characters, to keep the numbers up. Before long, the show either flops, or becomes way more popular. More often than not, it’ll not be the same animal it was in those first few shows. Once that evolution takes place, it’s make or break time to soar or fizzle out. Shows that stick to a formula seem to last longer. They take a lot of flack for sticking to said formula, but they gain dedicated viewers who stay with them.
BOOKS
I’ve fallen in love with a book series, only to have the characters evolve into something I don’t like anymore. The characters and plotting grow right out of what attracted me in the first place. They become something a far cry from what I read in book one.
The authors run the series dry and move on to something else. Fin. Done.
Maybe it was their plan all along. Maybe the author gets as bored as the audience. Maybe the story arc made the end inevitable, at least to the author.
What if you want the story to live on?
PROS AND CONS
Many readers love and expect characters to evolve. There are others that don’t. I think there’s room for both.
Some people think it’s mandatory to evolve, like there’s some cosmic rule that you have to evolve the characters, or what’s the point, and bla bla bla.
I say bull.
You don’t have to do anything. It’s your world.
Why not be like AC/DC and don’t fix something that isn’t broken?
I have no issue with the character evolving a little. Maybe put in small changes or details along the way, but nothing that requires or forces the character to change character. A natural progression is fine as long as you don’t fix something that isn’t broken – something that’ll kill the series.
There’s no reason a character has to start as A and end up being Z.
In this short attention span world, it’s almost expected characters have to change or the audience gets bored. If we all bend to that, we’re playing right into that mentality.
BRIEF EXAMPLE
I’ve always loved the Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt series. Over the decades, he’s written several dozen novels. My beef with Pitt is that the series has been going for so long, Mr. Cussler chose to age Pitt. Instead of keeping him young, and not letting time get in the way of a good story, he threw realism in and gave him age and baggage. Pitt started as the young, dashing hero. Now he has a dead wife, is semi-retired from adventuring, and promoted to director of his organization. His son and daughter do most of the heroics. That’s not exactly what attracted me to the series. I’ve aged right along with him, but though I still enjoy the series, it’s not quite the same. Yet, he still has his detractors who say it’s the same old thing, which is just a case of you can’t win.
On the other hand, the good old pulp stories of Doc Savage never had that issue. Though it’s been several decades since I last read them, I don’t remember Doc evolving all that much. Ken Robeson, AKA Lester Dent, didn’t fix something that wasn’t broke. He wrote 30+ great quick and dirty novels that gave me a great time.
I could list more examples but you get the point.
SUMMARY
It’s perfectly fine to evolve your characters if you want to. I do, to some extent, but not enough to limit the series if I want to write a hundred books. You don’t have to either. You don’t have to fix something that isn’t broken. You don’t have to ruin something good. You don’t have to bend to the will of the short attention span crowd. On the other hand, that does buck catering to a wider audience. Then again, there are authors out there cranking out what some call the same old stuff, and they’re doing just fine, like Stuart Woods, JD Robb, and ahem… Clive Cussler, according to his critics (yeah, go figure).
Happy writing!
RULES – WHY BOTHER?
I’ve talked about rules quite a bit here at Fred Central. In fact, I’ve pretty much beat them to death. They’ve become my mantra, so to speak. Yet again, throughout all that, I’ve still maintained that they CAN be broken on occasion. It’s not all rigid. Nothing is completely set in stone. However, there are limits.
The other day (as I got this inspiration, anyway), another forum friend, Richie Billing, had a blog article about which are your most hated rules and why. It was quite an interesting article and generated a lot of feedback and he just published the results.
My reply was to go back to why we have rules in the first place. So the writing doesn’t get in the way of the story. It was a bit more elaborate than that, but that’s what it boiled down to. Here, I want to re-emphasize that again.
Thank you, Richie Billing for the inspiration to tag onto your article to go on about rules again!
RULES DIDN’T JUST COME FROM THIN AIR
Many rules of writing came from feedback from readers, consensus amongst scholars, and just plain what makes sense. It’s taken centuries for it all to coalesce into what we accept as the current gibberish we call the English language. It’s been refined and refined, adjusted and tweaked, and styled and processed to become what we see when we open a book today.
The best books do it right.
The worst books suck.
This has nothing to do with whether the stories within said books are great.
It has to do with whether the author is able to convey that story the best way possible.
There are great stories that are almost unreadable.
There are mediocre stories that read great.
There are plenty of “classics” that are almost unreadable by todays standards.
There are also great stories that read great.
Why?
It’s all in the writing.
RULES REFINE THE WAY WE WRITE AND WHAT READERS READ
You wonder why we bother with rules?
Some rules may seem stupid, are annoying, or don’t make sense. There IS the possibility someone just threw a rule out there “juss cuz.” Maybe it’s an industry pet peeve, maybe it’s a bias of a certain editor, or even a writer. Maybe it’s just a random thought.
These arbitrary rules are almost universally shut down by scholars and the writing industry.
The hard-core rules, on the other hand, are the ones that keep writing on track and make it easier for readers to read.
As I said above, they didn’t just come out of a vacuum, they were developed over time.
WHAT ARE THE RULES?
You may have noticed I have not cited a single rule yet. I’ve been talking in general.
I’ve deliberately done that because the main purpose of this article is not to go over them specifically, but to suggest that there ARE reasons to comply with them.
I will give a brief list of a few.
Point of view.
Passivity.
Show not tell.
Grammar.
Prologues and epilogues.
Yup, all the usual stuff, and more.
SELF PUBLISHING IS GOOD AT DESTROYING THE RULES
I have nothing against self-publishing and know a few that have done quite well with it. However, I also know that self-publishing has done no favors to the quality of writing. This is the realm of rule breaking, and it shows.
The prime example is horror. I very rarely get horror in the bookstore, so I’m forced to buy this genre on Amazon. Hence, most of the books are self-published.
Folks, it shows. This is where the authors like to break the rules.
Many of the works have horrendous writing and follow few rules because there’s nobody to monitor them. While the stories may be great, outside of picking third-person, past-tense, which is all I’ll read, many of these authors follow few, if any of the basic rules of writing. The works are poorly, if at all edited. They’re full of just about every rule blunder imaginable. These authors not only don’t follow the rules, they throw them down the toilet.
The writing is not supposed to get in the way of the story.
You’re not supposed to be relieved to get the book overwith, you’re supposed to close the book with a smile on your face, wanting for more.
CONVENTIONAL PUBLISHING ISN’T IMMUNE TO RULE BREAKING
There are some very popular book series out there that aren’t immune to rule breaking, either. I could cite some that have even been turned into movie series, especially in the young adult and sexual categories. The writing is horrendous. These are the types of novels where I can’t even get past the first page, let alone an entire novel.
These books are with big houses and because they hit hot button topics, they get a free pass. The writing is absolute crap, but to get cheap thrills, they get published for the quick buck, with no integrity whatsoever.
Sure, it happens, but do YOU want your name associated with that?
I GUESS IT DEPENDS ON WHERE YOUR HEAD’S AT
Rules don’t have to be rigid. They ARE there for a purpose, though. The idea is so that the writing doesn’t get in the way of the story.
They should not make it a struggle for the reader to get to the point!
Many readers don’t consciously even realize they’re struggling with it, but they DO struggle.
When it’s done right, the reader can put down the book and don’t even realize they were reading.
Folks, THAT’S when you’ve done your job.
THAT’S what the rules are for.
The rules can be fudged a bit, but to be completely ignored, or even abused, burdens and forces the reader to work for your story. You shouldn’t be abusing your readers like that.
SUMMARY
Do your readers a favor and learn to use the rules the right way.
Happy writing!
EXPERIMENTING WITH STYLES
It comes up quite often on forums and in discussions where writers like to experiment with styles. You’ve all probably heard the old mantra “write what you feel.”
Let’s look at that loaded statement.
WHAT DOES WRITE WHAT YOU FEEL REALLY MEAN?
I write what I feel, every day, every time I sit down to write. There’s an infamous Hemmingway quote where he agonizes over a single paragraph. I don’t, not even an entire chapter, which is what I usually write when I sit down at a session. I don’t even agonize over an entire short story, sometimes, which I also write in its entirety in one sitting.
I just write it.
Why?
Because I feel it.
Others interpret that Hemmingway saying as meaning they feel different styles of writing. This is as well as whatever it is they want to say.
Not only do these writers have something to say, but they have certain barriers, lack of, or burdens thrust upon them where their writing (or lack of skill) is getting in the way of putting it all down. So, they feel like experimenting with styles to see how it all comes out.
What’s the result?
EXPERIMENT RESULTS
There are wildly varying styles of writing out there, partially because the author is experimenting with “what they feel,” what’s easy for them to write because it suits them, or because they’re too lazy to learn to write correctly.
There, I said it.
What’s the result?
The readers suffer.
Some readers are more tolerant than others. If the story is really good, they can overlook bad or awkward writing, to a point, to enjoy a good story. Some suffer to get to the point. Others may finish this “experiment” and go on to another book from an author that’s learned his chops and breeze through it without the writing getting in the way. It’s like a breath of fresh air.
Okay, you had your experiment. Maybe your book sold well, maybe it didn’t. Your legacy is now out there. Are you going to continue in that vein or are you going to wake up and try not to keep punishing your readers?
THERE ARE LOTS OF CRAPPY BOOKS OUT THERE
I read a LOT. An average of a book a week. I find a startling difference between certain authors. I have favorites because they know how to write.
I like to try new authors.
What are the results?
Once in a while, I discover a great new writer. Most often, they have a series which sells well. Sometimes they’re one-off.
Quite often, I get real duds. Why?
The writing sucks.
The writer experimented and it didn’t work. Either they had no oversight or their publisher took a chance and let the writing slip through. Most of the time, I never hear from these authors again, or if I do, I often see a different style with the next book. OR, their next book sells just as bad.
WHEN TO EXPERIMENT
It’s okay to experiment with a short story, to hone your chops and get a feel for how to write. However, when it comes to a full-length novel, people are investing time and money into your work. You’d better have your stuff together by then. You’d better be done with your experimenting around, your “feeling it,” and be ready to make the reading experience as easy and transparent as possible.
You’d better be ready to make your writing not get in the way of the story!
If you’re of the notion that it’s you’re writing, and if the audience doesn’t like it, well tough, get ready for a garage full of books. It’s hard enough even with great writing to get noticed.
If the whole point is to dazzle readers with your writing skills and chops, nobody cares. They care about what you have to say, not what gymnastics you can do with point of view, grammar, and tenses.
SUMMARY
Get the experimenting out of your system with writing exercises and short stories. Save your great novels for your best writing, for the writing that will hook our reader and keep them absorbed in the story, NOT stumbling over your writing gymnastics.
Happy writing!
WHAT’S THE MUSE, ANYWAY?
I had an interesting conversation the other night at the writer’s group meeting. I got there relatively early. I mean relatively, because I’ve been working overtime and I was later than usual. Yet to my surprise, our guest speaker beat me there and we were alone in the room. We’ve met before and got to talking about writing (go figure!). During the conversation, he mentioned that he doesn’t have a muse. If I got what he said right, he doesn’t believe in the muse. To him, it’s an excuse not to write. It’s a made up “flowery” thing that says if you’re not in the “zone,” you just can’t make your story happen.
I asked him what he does for inspiration. He takes the mercenary approach and writes for money. He writes for whatever is hot, to make money. If someone asks him to write something, he does. No muse, he just does it. To me, this was kind of like technical writing.
INTERESTING OUTLOOK
I had to ask if he even enjoyed writing, and his response, was “of course.” He went on to explain that he just focuses on what makes money.
While I admire his tenacity and drive, my motivations are different. I certainly don’t fault him for it. In fact, I believe that’s pretty much the same philosophy of Lee Child. Lee writes the Jack Reacher series and they’re great. He seems to love what he does, but he writes strictly for commercial purposes, from what I’ve read about him.
EVERYONE HAS THEIR REASONS
We’re all doing this writing thing for a reason. Whether it’s strictly artistic, for money or a bit of both, we’re still doing it.
I’m a bit of both, though I can’t deny my artistic side. Whether anyone agrees with that, is up to my readers.
How about you?
SO, WHAT’S A MUSE, ANYWAY?
Is the muse your inspiration to sit down and write?
Is it just something to blame writer’s block on when you can’t get it done?
I can only speak from my personal experience.
Muse is inspiration, the drive to create, at least to me. It’s that deep well within my soul that my ideas spring from. I don’t derive it from a person, like some infamous movie makers of late. It’s nothing physical. It’s, to put it blunt, my imagination. It’s always with me. It has been since the fifties with the polka-dot sewer back in kindergarten in Lakewood, California. Probably before that, but I just didn’t have a name for it. It’s only since 1995 that I finally had a true outlet (writing) to channel it.
Now, going back to the guest speaker. He’s a mercenary writer. He writes for trends. He writes for what’s hot, based on the market or what his publisher wants him to write. He doesn’t guess what’s going to be hot or write to temporary hot items that’ll die off by publication time. He writes to stuff that stays hot (we went over that too).
As I said above, he scoffed at the idea of a muse and said that was just a phony excuse to blame for writer’s block. If he needs to write something, he just sits down and writes it. Case closed (or words to that effect). He alluded to another famous writer, who’s name I didn’t catch, that touted that philosophy.
DO WE NEED A MUSE?
Do we need a muse? As I’ve defined it, it’s inspiration.
If you want to get all artsy fartsy about it, some of you maybe DO need a muse to create your art.
I call it my muse when maybe all I’m really talking about is my imagination. Plain and simple.
Why?
When I sit down to write, I get the inspiration (muse?) for a story. So, now I figure A and B beforehand. That may take a few minutes to a few days. Once that’s done, I start writing and it all just falls into place. Whether it’s muse, imagination or channeling, it’s out of my hands. It just happens and I no longer worry about it. I don’t get stuck, I don’t fret about the next step. I don’t freak out because I can’t figure the plot twist or whether character A is violating something to do with character B.
I just write. Simple as that. I don’t have a person, object, place or whatever to inspire me. It comes from within.
I’m also not a mercenary writer, so I don’t get orders from a publisher to “write this,” or “write that.” I have been in those type situations, or have put myself in them before. I can do it, but I much prefer not to.
Do you let the thing like muse get in your way? Do you let the IDEA of the muse get in your way?
Do you let writer’s block, imaginary or otherwise (like the story), bog you down?
Is it just excuses, as this writer said it was?
SUMMARY
The muse is a nice flowery, literary term, one I’ve used freely and liberally throughout this series of articles. Maybe what I’ve meant all along is something that has never failed me because it’s never got in the way of me getting the job done. Inspiration and drive.
Happy writing!
WASTED WORDS
I’ve talked plenty about tautologies, redundancies and writing tight.
The other day, we were driving home from the bookstore (hey, isn’t that a coincidence), and we were in the turn lane. This was an obvious turn lane with no other option. I had to wonder why everyone had their turn signal on. Even though I suppose it’s a state law, it made me wonder about the redundancy. We obviously can’t go anywhere else, so why do we have to let everyone know where we have to go anyway? We can’t change our minds and go somewhere else.
Redundant info.
Then I thought of the most common tautologies.
To remind you, a tautology is saying the same thing twice.
Stand up.
Sit down.
MYRIAD OF WAYS
There are a myriad of ways we waste words. Though I like to rag on literary writers, as much as they’re in love with words and like to ramble endlessly about description and feelings and inner thoughts, even they have to get to some kind of point eventually. As long as it takes a literary writer to get from A to B, there’s still some sense of word economy they have to adhere to.
On the other hand, if you’re a genre writer, or even a mix of literary/genre, you still have to get to the point eventually. To me, the quicker the better. I want description and characterization as well. However, I believe it can be done in as few words as possible, so the story moves, not at a glacial pace, but with reasonable speed.
The hazard for any writer, no matter how practiced you are, is that those wasted words inevitably creep into the story in a myriad of ways.
You can’t help it. Unless you’re a very slow and rigid writer, when you spit out your verbal diarrhea in a spurt of inspiration as the muse hits, you’re going to throw in wasted words. Your mind doesn’t always translate to the page what your fingers type (or hand writes, or mouth speaks). There’s a certain disconnect between what you’re thinking and what you actually write.
It’s natural, it’s inevitable. It’s why we have editing.
WEEDING OUT WASTED WORDS
This can be tougher than it seems. Tautologies are a good start. However, some of them are so naturally occurring, you may not even be aware of them.
Then there’s the turn signal in the turn lane. While it may be state law in the real world, in the literary world, it may be automatic, but reads poorly. Is it supposed to be there?
A blatant example.
“I think I’m going to get myself a cup of coffee.” Amy stood up, walked to the counter and poured a cup of coffee. She took a sip, sighed, then sat down in the chair at the kitchen table.
Oh…kay.
How about this?
Amy poured a cup of coffee, eased into the chair, leaned her elbow on the kitchen table and took a sip. “This tastes great.”
From 39 words to 24 words, eliminated two tautologies, removed an obvious and unnecessary statement and made it all simpler. Plus, I made it more active.
Here’s another one for you.
Of all the things Scott hated, none was worse than coffee. When he took a sip, his face screwed up, he spit it out, and said, “Aaagh! I wanted tea.”
How about this?
Scott took a sip, gagged and spat it on the ground. “I can’t stand coffee. I’ll take tea instead.”
Cut to the chase. No need for the turn signal when you obviously can’t go anywhere else.
One more.
“Loren, do you want to go to the movies?”
“I can’t stand going out in the traffic, the heat, the dust and wind. The movies are so expensive. The popcorn smell gets to me, and the crowds close in on me. I don’t like the sticky floor in the aisles and around the seats. Oh, and did I ever tell you about the seats? Are you crazy? Why would I want to go to the movies?”
How about this?
“Loren, do you want to go to the movies?”
“No.”
SUMMARY
You have to think of your blathering and rambling and how much color you really need and how much of it is relevant to the story. How much of it moves the plot.
Fluff you don’t need, whereas key elements you do. Color is fine. You do need to add life to your story, but not at the expense of wasted words. There’s a way to do it without bogging down the narrative.
Happy writing!
The Worlds Of Fred Rayworth 