Feb
29
2012
Here is an index of all my stories. It gives you the title, genre and length of each story; as well as a brief synopsis.
Index
May
19
2012
I’m behind with Story A Week. I already owe a story from the 13th, soon I will also owe one from the 20th.
This is because my fiancee vanished. Left with no warning or explanations on the 4th of May. Myself and my daughter have been heartbroken and it is been hard to carry on doing the basics such as breath, eat, drink and wash.
Let alone write a story.
Please hold on, the website is not dead and the project will continue and catch up. My real life has to come first right now and it is a mess.
May
19
2012
Richard Ford
1 Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.
2 Don’t have children.
3 Don’t read your reviews.
4 Don’t write reviews. (Your judgment’s always tainted.)
5 Don’t have arguments with your wife in the morning, or late at night.
6 Don’t drink and write at the same time.
7 Don’t write letters to the editor. (No one cares.)
8 Don’t wish ill on your colleagues.
9 Try to think of others’ good luck as encouragement to yourself.
10 Don’t take any shit if you can possibly help it.
May
16
2012
Anne Enright
1 The first 12 years are the worst.
2 The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.
3 Only bad writers think that their work is really good.
4 Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.
5 Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn’t matter how “real” your story is, or how “made up”: what matters is its necessity.
6 Try to be accurate about stuff.
7 Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
8 You can also do all that with whiskey.
9 Have fun.
10 Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.
May
13
2012
Ray Bradbury
Don’t start out writing novels. They take too long. Begin your writing life instead by cranking out “a hell of a lot of short stories,” as many as one per week. Take a year to do it; he claims that it simply isn’t possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row. He waited until the age of 30 to write his first novel, Fahrenheit 451. “Worth waiting for, huh?”
You may love ‘em, but you can’t be ‘em. Bear that in mind when you inevitably attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to imitate your favorite writers, just as he imitated H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, and L. Frank Baum.
Examine “quality” short stories. He suggests Roald Dahl, Guy de Maupassant, and the lesser-known Nigel Kneale and John Collier. Anything in the New Yorker today doesn’t make his cut, since he finds that their stories have “no metaphor.”
Stuff your head. To accumulate the intellectual building blocks of these metaphors, he suggests a course of bedtime reading: one short story, one poem (but Pope, Shakespeare, and Frost, not modern “crap”), and one essay. …
Get rid of friends who don’t believe in you. Do they make fun of your writerly ambitions? He suggests calling them up to “fire them” without delay.
…
Write with joy. In his mind, “writing is not a serious business.” If a story starts to feel like work, scrap it and start one that doesn’t. “I want you to envy me my joy,” he tells his audience.
Don’t plan on making money. He and his wife, who “took a vow of poverty” to marry him, hit 37 before they could afford a car (and he still never got around to picking up a license).
List ten things you love, and ten things you hate. Then write about the former, and “kill” the later — also by writing about them. Do the same with your fears.
Just type any old thing that comes into your head. He recommends “word association” to break down any creative blockages, since “you don’t know what’s in you until you test it.”
Remember, with writing, what you’re looking for is just one person to come up and tell you, “I love you for what you do.” …
May
11
2012
My heart lifts when I see her and I can breathe again. Her eyes, her face, even down to the way she smells. Everything about her I know and love. She has been a part of we, a half of the whole, and now she is not. Closer now, I see her eyes, tired, ringed with anger and sadness.
With everything she does, everything she says, she pushes me away. It makes no sense to me at first and is a pure pain that stabs though my heart and drains my soul. As the day’s pass, and the push remains, I realise that she’s encased herself in emotional armour.
In part it is for her benefit, but I also think it is for mine. She wants to not be in pain and she takes that pain out on me and I understand. I don’t bite back. “If you’d have known what was in the bag maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.” She slams at me. It doesn’t make sense, was I supposed to go through her things while she was living here? I don’t know. I look at her, hurt and confused, so little of this makes sense.
I touch her arm, she pulls away, the smallest of gestures rejected. I can’t connect with her anymore, her emotional armour swirls around her in a maelstrom of pain. I am the bad guy, the one to blame, the one to hate. I am the reason for all the pain she feels and she throws that pain at me like daggers.
I tell her I love her, and ask for a chance. Perhaps when we’ve both had a break, perhaps we can try again. I plead, beg and bargain. She accuses me of telling her what to do, her eyes flash with an anger that makes me shrink back. My head spins and I don’t know what to do. I can’t lose her, I can’t. My love for her borders on obsession, I am utterly hers in body and soul – whispered many times while our bodies were joined.
Searching for hope I stay close to her, it angers her further. I try to give her space as she throws clothing into bags that were once ours, and are hers again. I can’t do it. I am drawn to her as a flower to the sun. It’s raw and impossible for me to control. I try to maintain a connection with her, even as I don’t know where she is. “I hope we can be friends.” she tells me, but later “I’m not telling you my plans!” she hisses. I’m excluded from her life; I’m the enemy.
I email her, I text her, it’s rare she responds. She ignores anything that contains emotion and my connections are loaded with my heart. They overwhelm her and she withdraws. I ask her how, how do I connect with you in a way that works? Do what I say, she tells, don’t send so many texts, so many emails. I try but I too want this all cleaned up. The situation hangs over me and I‘m so afraid for myself and for my daughter.
She asks me if she’s coming back, can she still give her the mothers day chocolates that she’s bought. She looks at me with tears rolling down her face and my pain is doubled. I don’t have the answers for her, we sit and hold each other and cry. The only way we can move on is to disentangle, to have space, for both of us to breathe again, to think and feel ourselves as an individual, not a half.
The only chance I have to be with the woman I love so much is to let her go and pray that soon we can be friends. From that friendship perhaps something more will blossom, over time. Perhaps. That is the chance I seek, the hope in my heart.
May
10
2012
Neil Gaiman
How does one get published?
How do you do it? You do it.
You write.
You finish what you write.
You look for publishers who publish “that kind of thing”, whatever it is. You send them what you’ve done (a letter asking if they’d like to see a whole manuscript or a few chapters and an outline will always be welcome. And stamped self-addressed envelopes help keep the wheels turning.)
Sooner or later, if you don’t give up and you have some measurable amount of ability or talent or luck, you get published. …
Even if you haven’t met any editors, send your stuff out.
The “slush pile” of unsolicited manuscripts is not always a bad thing – publishers take enormous pleasure in finding authors from the slush pile (Iain Banks and Storm Constantine are both writers who simply sent out manuscripts to publishers), although it occurs rarely enough that it has to be a special thing when it happens.
If you write short stories, don’t worry about agents, just find places that might print the stories and get them out there. …
On the whole, anything that gets you writing and keeps you writing is a good thing.
…
Believe in yourself. Keep writing.
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.
May
7
2012
Although not strictly from famous authors, this is worth noting:
Write One Inch at a Time
The best advice I’ve ever come across for any kind of writing is from Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird. She says to write just one inch at a time. I love that! It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by a big project, but if I only have to concentrate on one inch, well, that I can handle. Eventually those inches will be feet and yards and whatever it takes to make a book. This is true for research, too, which can be overwhelming.
(Editor and children’s book author Maureen Boyd Biro, quoted in The ABC’s of Writing for Children, by Elizabeth Koehler Pentacoff. Quill Driver Books, 2002)
Finish Your First Draft
The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. “Finish Your first draft and then we’ll talk,” he said. It took me a long time to realize how good the advice was. Even if you write it wrong, write and finish your first draft. Only then, when you have a flawed whole, do you know what you have to fix.
(American journalist Dominick Dunne, quoted in Advice to Writers, by Jon Winokur. Pantheon, 1999)
Get Over It
October, 1987. Armadillocon, then the hippest science fiction convention on the face of the earth. I ran into Bill Gibson.
“We have to talk,” he said. “I’ve discovered the secret of writing.” . . .
“Okay,” I said. “What’s the secret of writing?”
A beat, for emphasis. Then: “You must learn to overcome your very natural and appropriate revulsion for your own work.”
It was the most useful writing advice anyone has ever given me.
(Science-fiction writer Eileen Gunn, “The Secret of Writing” in Stable Strategies and Others. Tachyon, 2004)
Simplify
I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in “business writing.” I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.
Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it.
Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.
(Writer and cartoonist Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog, June 16, 2007)
Murder Your Darlings
The Tao Te Ching’s call for simplicity parallels the writing instructor’s advice, to strive for simplicity and clarity in writing. English author Arthur Quiller-Couch originated one of the purest rules of writing you will ever hear. He advised, “If you require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it–wholeheartedly–and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
(Professor of English Ralph L. Wahlstrom, The Tao of Writing. Adams Media, 2005)
Lead With Your Best
The most useful advice on writing I’ve ever received comes from Gil Rogin, who told me that he always uses his best thing in his lead, and his second best thing in his last paragraph; and from Dwight McDonald, who wrote that the best advice he ever received was to put everything on the same subject in the same place. To these dictums I would add the advice to ask yourself repeatedly: what is this about?
(Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Powers, quoted in Advice to Writers, by Jon Winokur. Pantheon, 1999)
Write With Authority
The best advice on writing I’ve ever received is “Write with authority.”
(Novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick, quoted by Patrick Sebranek et al. in Writers Inc. Great Source Education Group, 2006)
Stand Out as a Real Person
[William] Zinsser says, “If you work for an institution, whatever your job, whatever your level, be yourself when you write. You will stand out as a real person among the robots.” He’s talking about the beige voice used by many in business, government, academic, and other institutional settings, but his advice applies even more so to the professional writer. He’s saying it exactly right: When you’re yourself on the page, you’re gonna “stand out as a real person among the robots.” The robots in this case being the folks in the mound of manuscripts piled high on any given editor’s desk.
(Author and teacher Les Edgerton, Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing. Writers Digest Books, 2003
Remember to Play
The best piece of advice I was ever given was by Thornton Wilder, who read my work for a good ten years and was utterly invaluable as a mentor. The advice he gave me was, “In writing there should always be an element of play.” . . . Even though you are writing something dead serious, there must be an element of play in the work, your approach to the work, and even your doing of the work.
(Novelist John Knowles, quoted by Jimm Roberts in Southernmost Art and Literary Portraits. Mercer Univ. Press, 2005)
Show up for work
There’s a phrase, “sitzfleisch,” which means just plain sitting on your ass and getting it done. Just showing up for work. My uncle Raphael was a painter, and he used to say, “If the muse is late for work, start without her.” You have to be there. You have to be there, and do it, and grind it out, even when it is grinding and you know you’re probably going to rewrite all this tomorrow.
(Novelist and short story writer Peter S. Beagle, quoted in Novelish: A Writing Blog, Dec. 15, 2008)
Finally, the best advice of all is also the simplest, says author Peter Mayle: “Finish.”
May
4
2012
Geoff Dyer
1 Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over – or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: “I’m writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job.” Publisher: “That’s exactly what makes me want to stay in my job.”
2 Don’t write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris. The usual writerly reasons: back then, if you were caught writing in a pub in England, you could get your head kicked in, whereas in Paris,dans les cafés . . . Since then I’ve developed an aversion to writing in public. I now think it should be done only in private, like any other lavatorial activity.
3 Don’t be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov.
4 If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great autocorrect files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: “Niet” becomes “Nietzsche”, “phoy” becomes ”photography” and so on. Genius!
5 Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary.
6 Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.
7 Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it’s a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It’s only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel that I’m bunking off from something.
8 Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.
9 Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don’t follow it.
10 Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to perseverance. But writing is all about perseverance. You’ve got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That’s what writing is to me: a way of postponing the day when I won’t do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.
May
3
2012
How long should my short story be? When does a short story become a novelette, or a novella? What’s the word count required for a novel?
Short answer, it depends. The long answer provides the guidelines:
May
3
2012
Would it be easier for you, the reader, if I collected together the different parts of a finished story, such as Tidal, and put them together in one page? Each multi-part story would then be on its own page that takes the story from start to finish. That way you wouldn’t need to hunt and peck for links across multiple pages, which to me at least, breaks up the flow of reading and enjoying the story.
What are your thoughts? This is extra work for me though, time I could spend writing, so if this is useful please let me know.