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Out of Office

January 8, 2014 0 Announcements Permalink 1

so-close-but-so-far

Dear Loyal ALoL Reader,

I hope this announcement finds you happy and in good health!

I am now on winter break, and I’m quickly approaching the 30,000-word mark for the first draft of my work-in-progress. I’m roughly 37% complete. In order to speed up the process, I will be taking a short break from blogging.

But I will return soon, reenergized, and with more new content. I have a lot of new ideas in the works, including a set of posts with my own suggested rules for writing.

In the meantime, while I am “out of the office,” all of my previous posts will remain undisturbed and available to you on this website. The easiest way to navigate them, by the way, is to search my past posts by category (located in the sidebar).

If you haven’t already, please click on the “+Follow” button on the lower righthand corner of the page and enter your email address to receive an email announcement when I have new content ready for you on ALoL, so you don’t miss a single post. And during this break, please feel free to still send me an email or drop me a line in the comments boxes.

Thank you for your patience and support during this very exciting time in my life.

And–as always–write your heart out!

Cheers,

Ryan

 

Photo credit: Brett Kiger / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

New Year’s Resolutions for Writers

January 1, 2014 2comments Modern Writer v1.0 , , , , Permalink 0

New Year's Resolution Coasters by Lucky Bee PressInevitably, around this time of year, people roll out their lists of New Year’s resolutions–these lists might include items like “Imma lose weight!” or “Imma quit dranking!”

Well, I have one more item to add to all of our lists: “We should be writing.”

It’s inspired by Mur Lafferty’s podcast, I Should Be Writing, and if you follow it or not, you might’ve heard of the Magic Spreadsheet.

It’s a self-calculating Excel spreadsheet that awards points for how many words you’ve written in a day (1 point for 250 words, 2 points for 500 words, etc.) and how many days you’ve continued writing (1 point for 1 day, 2 points for the second day, etc.).

The goal being that by writing 250 words daily, you would write over 90,000 words in a year, surpassing the industry standard of 80,000 words for a novel.

I’m a competitive person by nature (I think most people are), and by seeing the points I’ve scored for each month, I feel a need to score more points on subsequent months. It reminds me of an RPG, or something–that I’m actually “leveling up” as a writer as I accumulate more points. I started writing with the Magic Spreadsheet last March, and I’ve been the most productive that I’ve ever been. Hands down!

So if one of your New Year’s resolutions is increasing your productivity as a writer, you should try downloading and using this spreadsheet. It’s definitely helped me maintain a more consistent writing routine.

Happy New Year, Everybody! May this year be a more productive writing year for us.

Write your heart out!

 

Photo credit: BazaarBizarreSF / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Sharing a Longer Work-in-Progress

December 11, 2013 3comments Revision & Editing Tips , , Permalink 2

Isaac Watching the Planes Taking Off at Castle Island

Have you ever written a solid chunk of a work-in-progress and you wanted a second opinion to reconfirm you’re on the “right track”?

During this crucial time, you might be looking for a general reaction, constructive criticism, or unabashed praise.

However, for longer works-in-progress, I highly recommend that you hold off on showing it to readers for several reasons:

1. If your reader gives you a lukewarm reaction, it may destroy your enthusiasm to finish it.

2. If your reader gives you poignant constructive criticism, it may force you to rethink your vision for your work-in-progress–possibly destroying your enthusiasm to finish it.

3. If your reader gives you unabashed praise, you may suspect that your reader is only pitying you, and it may force you to rethink your vision for your work-in-progress–possibly destroying your enthusiasm for it.

In general, when writing, be confident with the story you are telling. You know why you’re writing it. There’s something there. Hold onto that something. Hold onto that feeling, that sense of wonder and possibility. Don’t let other people’s voices distract you from what needs to be done: writing.

Get it done. Then show it to your readers. Their feedback will be much more helpful at that stage of your writing process.

Write your heart out.

 

Photo credit: Chris Devers / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

My NaNoWriMo Results

December 4, 2013 2comments Announcements , , , Permalink 0

NaNoWriMoNow that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has officially ended and my life has transitioned back to a state of normalcy (as normal as it’s going to get with the stress of finals looming), I’ve had some time to reflect on my experiences as a first ever participant.

I have a couple disclaimers before I begin. (If you’d like to read how I ever decided to join NaNoWriMo in the first place, please click here.)

1. I edit. A lot. I could not completely divorce myself from my “Banger” ways. This past month was as “Swooper” as it gets for me. Before I began a new day, I read over my previous day’s words and revised and edited them. Whenever I finished a chapter, I spent a few days just revising and editing it. Though this put my overall word count in jeopardy, it renewed my confidence that I was headed in the right direction.

2. I also currently teach five days a week (for the first time ever in my teaching career), and it’s difficult find uninterrupted blocks of time to write while teaching, grading, and lesson planning, among my other responsibilities.

Prior to NaNoWriMo, my wife and I constructed a schedule for me to follow during the month of November that included at least three hours of writing per day, 24 writing hours per week. I wrote this on an index card and taped it to my computer as a daily reminder.

So was I able to adhere to this schedule?

Ehh… Kinda. There were days that I was unable to write due to work obligations and a peer evaluation (I’m acclimating to a new college), but my NaNoWriMo schedule forced me into a pretty regular routine, and I was a more productive writer this past month. Prior to NaNoWriMo, my best months featured about 5,000 words, or one short story.

In fact, I’m so pleased with my results that I’ve decided to create new writing schedules–new index cards–for myself whenever my schedule changes to keep up my routine. During winter break, for instance, I will follow a new routine, and during the Spring semester, I will follow another new schedule. My goal is to finish a first draft of my novel by this summer.

What did I learn?

To call yourself a writer, you have to write. NaNoWriMo encourages this through daily emails and forums and meet-ups. It essentially creates and promotes a culture of writing that is easy to adopt for the entire month. The trick is to let this momentum carry you into the rest of the year. For those of us in education, December and January should be good writing months.

Would I do it again?

Yes! Though I did not “win” by writing 50,000 words for the month, I bested my own personal record, and I’m that much closer to finishing the first draft of my novel. What more can you ask for?

 

Photo credit: Wired.com

If You Want to Be a Writer… Read! Read! Read!

November 27, 2013 0 Rules for Writing , , , Permalink 0

And Art Alive Still

If you want to improve your skills as a fiction writer, you need to first become a student of the craft.

In other disciplines, this is common sense. For example, aspiring basketball players might study film of Allen Iverson’s killer crossover, Tim Duncan’s post moves, or Kobe Bryant’s fallaway jump shot. It is not by mere coincidence that any of these future Hall of Fame basketball players created these moves in a vacuum. They, themselves, also studied film of their predecessors. A culture of study and application exists in the NBA.

However, when it comes to writing fiction, many beginning writers will approach the craft with the assumption that anyone can write. And to some extent, this is true. Millions of Americans have composed essays in high school or composed descriptive passages in emails. So, yes, millions of people possess the ability to write. And unlike basketball, since writing is such a solitary experience, judging the inherent quality of the writing begins (and sometimes, unfortunately, ends) with the actual writer.

But, make no mistake about it: Writing fiction is a skill. And like any skill, it requires dedication and direction to improve. This is where reading comes into play.

To be a successful writer, you need to develop an appetite for reading. Read the classics. Read your contemporaries. Read books outside of your genre. And when you finish one book, begin another.

By reading these books, you will be exposed to the “killer crossovers, post moves, and fallaway jump shots” of other successful writers.

In order to improve the ways in which you write your heart out, you need to find the time to read your heart out, too.

(I realize this might be particularly challenging during NaNoWriMo, though…)

 

Photo credit: dhammza / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

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