Four Ways to Work on Writing Without Writing
You don’t have to write every day. I’ve said it a million times on this blog and I still believe it. You absolutely must make regular progress on your writing, lest inertia put a stop to all of your endeavors. In many cases it’s easier to not do hard work than it is to do so, and if writing isn’t hard work for you, my guess is that you’re missing something.
So, I don’t subscribe to the “you must write every day” commandment so popular in the writing advice world. Write every other day. Or on the weekends. If you get the story or that book done, you’re a writer.
But if you feel you must work on something everyday, and yet don’t feel ready to write, remember there are all kinds of ways to be working on a story or novel that don’t involve the actual writing. So long as you progress in the creation of the story and don’t use these activities as a means of procrastination, I’ve found they are well worth the writers time on days when the writing itself just isn’t happening. Consider:
–Research. Of course, it’s the most famous, and has become the most common weapon of procrastinating writers. But you don’t have to be procrastinating in order to research. If you have a specific set of questions you need answered for your story, write them down, and research only the answers to same. You need to do it at some point anyway, why not today?
–Outlining. If that is, you believe in outlines. I often spend a day I’ve set aside for work almost solely on outlining. I can bridge plot gaps and come up with scenes that I didn’t know I needed before. Rarely do I outline and write a scene in the same day. I like to let the outline set, like wet cement, until it’s dry the following day and can be “walked on” as it were. I’m not afraid to change what the outline says if needs be, but outlining a chapter or two of a novel is working on said novel. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
–Brainstorming. Again, this can be a time suck and a procrastination classic. That’s fine sometimes, of course, because it’s fun to do. Yet even a brainstorm can be productive if directed. Take whatever plot point you are having trouble with, and come up with 50 ways it could be solved. But remember to include even the most absurd solutions. Even if you are writing historical fiction, if an alien landing could solve the particular problem you are having, write it down on your brainstorm page, or whatever you’re using. Of course you won’t put that into a true historical novel, but if you let yourself entertain it, you are circling your ideas and your plot from every possible angle, digging as deep as you can into its nature. It may sound like a game, but once you come up with 50 or so possible solutions, no matter how crazy, it will feel like work. Fun work, but work. Work on your writing that isn’t actually writing.
-Read it. This depends to a great extent on your process. Some people, like myself, don’t like to look at my first draft of a longer piece until it’s totally finished. But with shorter pieces, I will sometimes read it over once or twice to see how it sounds, and what it’s doing. If i see a mistake to correct, or an idea to make it better, I will make the change, but the change is not the main reason for such readings. I go back and read a piece, or sometimes portions of a piece, to get myself into the mindset of my work. Even a writer can’t always jump instantly into the mood of something he’s working on. But by reading what you have so far, you’re not only detecting what needs to be revised at some point, but you are “working” on the piece by tempering yourself into it to ready yourself for writing more. Dipping a toe in the pool first, if you will. It can be especially effective if you read it out loud.
By no means are these the only things you can do to work on your writing without the actual writing. But I’ve found these are the four I most often fall back on, when I want to be working on a piece, but yet can’t gear up to actually write any given day. Literal writing is best and of course cannot be avoided forever, but better to be working on a piece, by the means above or others when I’m not writing, than to not be writing, and not be working on any aspect of the piece at all.
What other things might a writer do to work on a piece without the actual writing? Do you do any of these I’ve listed?
The Introverted Writer’s Dilemma
You readers of this blog should know by now that I’m an introvert, and happily so. I don’t consider myself, or any given introvert superior to extroverted types, as there are pluses and minuses to both temperaments. That extends to my writing as well.
The vast majority of time, I consider my introversion a plus as far as writing is concerned. I think introversion in general is a slight advantage when it comes to writing, especially fiction. Sort of like being white in chess is a slight advantage, though many brilliant games have been won playing black.
Introverts spend much time inside their own heads, exploring their own imaginations. We do this even if we have no specific creative agenda; we just gravitate inward much of the time. The benefits of this tendency to a writer, or a creative artist in general are obvious. Images, characters, scenarios, phrases, poems, all shining about in the jewel case of the introvert mind.
Yet once in a while it can work against a writer. Sometimes being an introvert means sinking so far into one’s own imagination that things become if not overwhelming than at least tiring. Instead of a specific idea for this story, we find ourselves confronting a nebulous (though usually friendly) monster called “Imagination!” When that happens it can sometimes be difficult for introverts, or at least this introvert, to make sense of what his subconscious is presenting. Like trying to listen to four songs at once. You need someone to direct traffic.
Or you have a coherent set of ideas, but you don’t know what to do with them. Is this a novel, a play, a poem? Is it just a random breeze blowing across my cheek as I hike through my own mind? An introvert writer can enjoy the chaos this entails, but must also be able to sort out the madness for a while, and come up for air so actual writing gets done. Usually this is simply a matter of discipline. But sometimes it is a difficult tide to stem.
As always I’m happy to be introverted, and I have no doubt that being so has been a huge net positive for my creative endeavors. But with the productivity and the positive sometimes comes the haphazard and the negative. Sometimes even the scary, if an introvert looks deep enough for too long into themselves. And even then there is probably some good material for writing, if we can sort it out.
You’re Not the Next…
So many articles that give advice to new writers contain the phrase, “you’re not the next…(insert famous author/wild overnight success story here.)” Not only is it a cliche to include this bit of advice, but it invariably leads me to the same response; “How the hell do you know I’m not the next…?”
I don’t know if I am the next superstar, and I don’t know if you are. I can even accept that statistically most people do not end up becoming superstars in any field of endeavor, writing included. Yet it seems that professional advice to aspiring writers, more often than most fields, is tempered right off the bat with admonitions that one cannot expect to be a great success. Writers are constantly reminded that they must only admire and envy the success of Super Author from afar, because they are never, ever going to attain it themselves. They tell us that we must be willing to not only languish in obscurity, but to love it.
That’s all well and good, fairy godmother, but what about those of us that live in the actual world?
Not that being a superstar is the only way to satisfy me as a writer. Yet I question the efficacy of making “You’re not the next…” an almost universal proviso when making suggestions to writers. (And the best anyone anywhere can offer is suggestions; the writing world and the reading public are unpredictable in so many ways.) If I should become a success, that advice is going to look silly.
It should go without saying that Super Author was not Super Author, until they were. They were no more likely to be the next Super Author when they were still Obscure Author than you or I am. Yet there they are today, one of the many names that completes the phrase, “You’re not the next…”
I of course admit that there are certain traits or actions that might have contributed to the success of Super Author. But then again, let’s be honest here, sometimes there are no traits or formulas, or qualities. Sometimes people just write themselves into 300 daily sex fantasies with their favorite boy band and become Super Author. Is an industry wherein this happens the sort of place where we should be reminding everyone that their odds of making it are next to zero? In a world where writing bad fan fiction about a bad set of books brings about one of the best selling novels of the last 20 years, telling new writers to eliminate even the hope of fame is laughable.
You know what, writers advice columns? I think we get it. Message received. Point made. Chapter read and lesson learned; you don’t want any of us to assume we will be successful. You don’t think we have what takes to be “the next…”. Got it. We’ll read your rules and guidelines if that makes you happy. We appreciate your desire to advise us, we really do. But we’re not stupid either, and we see, just about once a month if not more, somebody, somewhere ignoring everything you say and becoming in the process, (you guessed it), “the next…”
So I think it’s time to do away with that proviso. One, most writers are not stupid, so they know what the score is. Two, it would be nice if advice and guidance consisted on HOW to become “the next…” as opposed to being weighed down from the first sentence with warnings that we haven’t got a prayer of being “the next…”. True, the advice still may not make us Super Author. But then again it might. Or something else might. Or none of it will. That’s the point I’m making. Therefore, on behalf of every new or emerging author out there that finds “You’re not the next…” to be a bit disingenuous, I request that you at least spell my name right, should I become Super Author, when you write advice that begins with, “You’re not the next Ty Unglebower.”
An Open Letter to an Anonymous Fan
For the purposes of this open letter, the subject will be referred to as Myra. —T.U.
Dear Myra,
I knew it was you. Not right away, but it didn’t take long for me to put two and two together.
It’s not easy being an entertainer/artist without an audience. Try as I might back in my days as a college radio host, I couldn’t get people to call on, or listen to the show, from all I could tell. Not even most of my friends.
So when I got your first “fan” letter, I was pleased, to say the least. I had a few ideas as to who it might be, but when I went to them, they denied responsibility. The mystery remained after the second letter yous end the following week,
Then by the third week, I started to notice certain things. Too detailed and boring to get into in this letter, but suffice to say that between other people’s reactions, observed behaviors, and mostly the timing of everything, I deduced you were writing the letters.
You must have been listening to the show most of the time, as your letters reflected knowledge of what I’d been talking about. Whether you listened because you enjoyed it, or listened because it happened to be on when others were listening, I don’t know. Nor do I know if you wrote the letters because you were an actual fan, or you wrote the letters because you pitied me. Either way, it was nice to get them sometimes, so I didn’t confront you in person, even though I knew. I didn’t know you that well anyway, and why mess with a good thing.
Fandom aside, I’ve always wanted to say to you directly that you were a bit rude coming down to the studio to tell me you were offended by the joke I made. Now, I’m sorry if your religious views were violated by what i said, and I apologize on principle for the offense. (As I did on the air that night, which I will get to.) But to demand an apology in person after barging into the station like a bull in a china shop? I don’t think it was called for. You called have called the station and been calmer about it. You could have written me an actual letter and signed it. It all could have been more civilized than it was. Especially given your fondness for Jesus.
I couldn’t say all I wanted to, because there was this weird dichotomy of dealing with you accosting me during my own show, and then there was “you”, the one who had been decent enough to write all of those letters. I found myself pissed as the former, and still wanting to show due consideration for the latter.
I went on the air and apologized, but also went on a bit of a rant. I mentioned on the air that, “I’m sure this offended whoever is writing me anonymous fan letters as well.” I supposed you knew at that point that the jig was up. I guess I sort of wanted you to know, and not want you to know. It was weird to be offended by someone and appreciative of them at the exact same time.
A few weeks later, fan letters still came, though, with apologies for being late. (I knew why of course.) It was never quite the same, but, to still put in the effort, even if you felt it was a pity job, merits some acknowledgement today.
As it did back then. That’s why I left you that voice mail in the last few days of college. Still not really knowing you at all, I thanked you, and said, “Think about it, and you’ll know what I’m thanking you for.” You never did acknowledge knowing it, just as I never did acknowledging knowing it was you that wrote the letters. The dance remained intact, even after all of the weirdness.
So though I thanked you back then, I wanted to again, even though I have no idea where you are. I also wanted to take this chance, after all these years, to mention that despite your kind service to me in those days, I felt your umbrage was uncalled for, religion or no. You had proven yourself intelligent by then, you could have exercised a bit more of it, and not embarrassed me on my own turf.
But, it is over now, and I don’t carry much resentment over it anymore. I guess in a way this is a reverse fan letter to you, all be it a much belated one. Hopefully you can find some good in it, as I found good in your letters, despite the brush up.
Go in peace.
sincerely, Ty Unglebower
-This post is part of the Open Letter Continuum.
Genre Unknown
I have a genre problem.
Let me start by saying I know that genre is important in marketing. I try to use it when I can. I have Thank You for Ten: Short Fiction About a Little Theater listed as “general fiction.” But I use that for several of my stories because I don’t know what else they would fit into.
I posted a short story called Linger on Wattpad the other day. Due to some of the imagery, I listed it as “horror,” though the more I researched the technical requirements of that genre, the more I determined my story probably didn’t belong there. Yet it is not general fiction either, and it is hardly literary.
Sometimes I think I am writing literary fiction, though. That, I realize, is a rather loose definition these days, but whenever I write something that “feels” literary, some article comes along to explain to me how what I’ve written isn’t experimental enough or socially relevant enough or controversial enough to be literary.
So I have a hard time assigning a genre to my stories.
That’s only part of the issue, however. It is also wise from a marketing standpoint to only write in a certain genre. At least, that’s what they tell me. But whatever genre Linger is in, I can safely say it is not the same genre as Amateurs in the Distance is. Or perhaps it is, if everything I write can be shoved into “general fiction”, but if you read both you will see right away that the tone is quite different between them.
So not only am I bad at choosing what genre a story is, I don’t even stick to one genre.
Am I shooting myself in the marketing foot by being this way? Truth be told, I might be. Especially with my upcoming novel. I will pick a genre and market to it, as I have for most of my short stories. But a story comes to me for reasons that transcend genre. When the time is ripe for a story that I’m pondering, I have to write it. That’s what happened with Linger. I had been working on something else for a few weeks, and Linger kept interrupting my thoughts, and the story I was working on was going nowhere. So I switched to finishing Linger. I still haven’t gone back to the story I was working on. I’m calling that one “adventure,” but it might be fantasy. But which kind of fantasy??
Some aspects of promotion are just beyond my skill set and personality. Some can be improved upon and some cannot. Is my genre ambiguity one that can be work on or not? I’m not sure. I will say that if there is an answer to it that will allow me to pay attention to the stories I feel drawn to write, I can see myself improving in promotion. But if the only way to get better is to choose a genre, understand its every nuance, and refuse to write any story that doesn’t fit into same, than I don’t think I can improve in this regard. Having a story speak to you enough to write a draft, and then to revise and share it with the world is a rare enough process as it is. The last thing I need to do is limit the stories I can work on because they don’t fit into “my genre.”
Whatever “my” genre is.
Ty Unglebower 