Confront

Ha! Rapscallions, knaves and pretend writers! I challenge thee, canst thou confront this business of writing?

But seriously, writing is a very serious business. Yes it is very hard to confront. Yep, hmm I don't know if you have what it takes. Very hard. You've got a lot to confront, it may be too much for you.

Or maybe...

Maybe that's all complete bullshit and you can confront this. I think it is complete and total bullshit. Therefore it is. You can confront it.

Confront what? Writing. Well that's not specific.  Okay let's be specific.

A. Can you confront sitting down and writing? Even if it's just a sentence, can you confront that? You can? Good, I thought so.

B. How about a story? Regardless of length can you finish a story? Hmm? Maybe a little harder. Okay, if you can confront sitting down and seeing through to completion a story then go to D. If not:

C. Can you write ten pages? Then one hundred? Once you can do both of those you should be ready for step B.

D. Are you able to throw away what you just wrote? In other words, can you edit it? Well if you can and can go over it all, not be paralyzed by the fear of never changing a word of the precious story you just completed and come to a totally satisfactory product from your point of view then that's a pass on D.

E. Can you show it to people? Just your friends now, maybe a few strangers, can you present it to them? Aha, if not work D some more. Or just go out and do it, get your confront up and show it to people. In doing this if they think it's rubbish you can either have them help you edit it or you can tell them to get lost. Either way, you confronted showing it to people.

F. Can you submit it? So now you send it in for publication. You go out and look for places to submit to and submit it.

G. Handle rejection? Sure.

H. Persevere until it is published? You better. And if you have trouble with this one edit it some more per D.

I. Now that you are published start back at A and write a whole lot more!

Yep, that is basically what you have got to do. None simpler than that, just get her done. Now, if you in fact cannot confront this whole list just calm down! All you have to confront is step A! Only after you confront step A do you have to confront step B, and then you go to C and on till publication.

So, that is all you have to do. Just start writing, persevere until it's done, start editing and showing it to people, then get it published. You know, soon I'm going to go over a bit of the know-how of how to get published because that is important to do. But first I'm going to run this little checklist by myself so I can get published. You see I'm not published right now. I'm maybe at...(looks at checklist) F. I've got some works, I'm going to work on publishing them. I have a couple stories I'm editing and getting ready for publication, but I don't have any real back off on writing stories, completing them and sending them around to my friends. Ask my friends, they hear from me all the time about my latest story. But I've got to get one published.

So, I'm actually not going to write my next blog post until I get a story sent in for publication. I say, a week, maybe two. So consider this a vacation from listening to me for a couple weeks! Lucky you!

Ha ha, okay, you guys are really fun to have around, talk to you later. Hopefully I inspire you a little to get off your ass and get your stories in the bookstores.

CME

Note: You're reading this blog, so I wrote it and got it out! Your turn! See you in a couple weeks, hope to also see some written works!

Comments

[JC]

Excellent breakdown!

Where's the line about confronting learning about how this is done? Breaking out the Chicago Manual of Style, wading through the 18 different ways a story is "supposed to be written", getting the technical side of it down, so you can enhance your ability to communicate? :)

Also, showing a story to people is like three steps unto itself. First you show it to one person, then you show it to a few people whose opinions you value, then you bravely set out to a writer's group (hopefully a very good one), and proceed to see your work torn to pieces and edited almost to oblivion, and you have to salvage what was usable and what is just false. Having someone criticize work to your face and someone sending you an email about it are different. I also found it helpful to attend several writers groups, and edit other people's work, and take part in creating books.

Also, there's a step about confronting when to stop. When to stop editing, stop searching for people to check it, even when to stop if you hit a road block and need to go do something completely different. Editing can actually go on forever, if you don't eventually put an end to it. And getting it totally satisfactory sometimes seems impossible.

For short stories, it is much easier for me to just write it, edit it, finish it. For novels, the storyline and the characters keep expanding, and one time, what started as a novella became a trilogy. It almost became a four-volume set but I finally got myself to stop.

Definitely I agree we have to be happy with the final product before it is shown to someone else. I agree with the theory that you have to love it first; but hopefully there is someone nearby that can work with you and help you find out when to stop. For me, that is my reader. And when my reader is not available, I read the story from the point of view of a reader reading my story for the first time.

If I hit any points that don't make sense from that point of view, I fix it. If it communicates, and creates the effects I want it to create, and the story seems complete (like I'm not missing some important data about the characters, and everything rings "true"), then I stop. And I have to let it go, and take on the next story.

:)

(Oh, and we have to be willing to actually throw stories away. That's a big one. I found several stories I had written when I was 12, and I was carrying them around as Things To Complete, and some of them I just threw away. It was an incredible feeling not to worry that one day I might run out of ideas, or to acknowledge that some of my writing had honestly been bad, even if at the time I wrote it, for that stage of my writing, it was excellent.)

Writing, being something creative, seems to embrace life and all its emotions, and seems to have itself, several stages of development. I go with the theory, "write, write, write" and enjoy the process.

-JC

[JC]

OK it's been almost two months... do we get to enjoy another blog or are you gonna hold out until the story is finished? LOL. -j

[dissertation topic]

Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!