All That's Written

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!

Coming To You Live From Across The Room

And it's good to see you to. I have been very busy lately and this is a good thing, I've got lots to write about. I told you how I sat down and just knocked off a story, well let me tell you a little about a project I'm working on which doesn't quite fall under that classification. In fact I might go so far as to call it a "project".

I am making a webcomic! Now interestingly enough I do not know how to draw. But that is Ok. Factually I don't have to draw, I just have to get someone else to do it. Thus my lovely assistant (who for now we shall call Codename: Bug) is going to do that. We also have a letterer (Codename: Franky) and so we seem to be in business.

Now, it's not very possible to sit down and write a comic in one go. I might go so far as to say it's impossible unless it's a very short comic. This is not a short comic me and "Bug" are creating, no sir, why I might go so far as to say it is going to be a "long" comic.

That being said I can't just bang it all out, which is what annoys me about larger works. You can't just really sit down and write it. You've got to outline. And once I've outlined I find it is still a bit hard to just stream through the thing.

Now, some people refer to this as "writer's block". I am in the middle of some writer's block. However, this is Ok! I am getting through it using an ancient technique I like to call "more outlining". I've written an outline, and I've gone over it a lot with "bug", but in additional run-throughs of the outline I am finding out additional facts about the cast and plot, and sometimes discovering additional plots and cast members! So it is very fun and it is resolving the writer's block.

Now I kind of went over writer's block in an earlier post, what to do if the creative juices aren't flowing. I don't know if I mentioned outlines or not. (Note: I just checked the post and I didn't!) But outlines are super important if you are stuck. I don't care if you're one of those "I like to run with the story as I go" types, it really will help you to get a bird's eye view of the corner you just ran into. You get new ideas and you feel good and then you start writing and you feel really good. Why you might just finish the story and feel excellent!

Last thing before I end off. Recently someone had said to me writing is an individual thing. They are so very wrong! I have been writing more, so I've been a bit happier than usual. As a result I have also been constantly encouraging my friends to keep writing, which has caused them to write more! It has also kept my mind on writing and less on other more petty things in life (like reading). Thus I can emphatically state it is not a solo activity! It is important to have friends to talk to about this stuff! And it produces better writings, so go get all your friends interested in writing or some other art and encourage each other to keep at it. You'll benefit, they'll benefit.

CME

Note: Shouldn't you be writing a blog yourself so you can send me the link and have me read it?