This is the second part of a recent Google DocTalk™ with my publishing pal Jeff Ambrose, and we had a broad conversation about this Writing thing we do. We decided to split it up into two "hats", writer and publisher. Last week? "Wearing the Publisher Hat" This week: "Wearing the Writer Hat". You'll be able to find the conversation on both of our sites.
Jeff Ambrose of The Window In The Basement is JA
David Barron of by David Barron is daB
“Wearing the Writer Hat”
David Barron: ...yaknow, Ambrose Barron would be a really fun
pen name. He writes Civil War Westerns and smokes a lot.
Jeff Ambrose: Do you know a lot about the Civil War?
daB: I’ve dabbled. As a political scientist, it’s my duty
to know about the birth throes of the Modern Era. (That sounds much
more exciting than what it looks like in academic papers.) It
wouldn’t have to be about the battlefield exclusively.
JA: This is why Ken Burns is such a blessing … though I’ve
heard his documentary on the Civil War is slanted at times. But then,
all histories are slanted, if they’re worth anything. Who
wants just a list of dates and facts? Good historians offer opinions.
daB: All description is opinion. That’s what writers have to
believe or they’re screwed.
Attitude
JA: Since we’ve been talking a lot about what “beginners”
should know, I think it’s important to emphasize again where
one gets ones information. One reason why I don’t talk too much, if
at all, about the business side of writing is that I don’t
know enough. I struggled with writing for over 10 years before I
finally got into the groove, and 2012 makes my twelfth anniversary of
trying to make a go at it, and my second anniversary of Getting
Serious. So I have no problem talking about writing or telling
beginning writers (i.e., writer with less experience than I) what
they should or shouldn't be doing. Again, this isn’t in terms of
business or even craft. It’s attitude. What attitude should
a writer have. What kind of work ethic should they cultivate.
And yet, it amazes me how many writers look to their peers for
advice (I don’t look to my peers, and I don’t expect my peers to
look to me!). That’s silly. I want to be a long-term professional
writer … so I look to my peers how to do that? I have to
say, if you’re doing that, you’re beyond crazy. You’re an
idiot. Here’s the rule of thumb: If you want to be a long-term
writer, look to long term writers for cues of how to think and
act, of which attitudes to cultivate, of which ones to get rid of.
daB: The standard mantra If you want to learn the business,
find a few successful people and do what they’re doing. Then:
innovate. If you want to learn something, find somebody who knows how
to do it and do that until you’ve figured it out, then make it
yours. It works for writing, of course: Read a Lot, Talk a Lot, then
Practice by...Just Writing. For business, it’s even easier. Learn
Business, by Watching and Doing.
My “First 200 Days” was all about how I got into that Mindset of Writing (and
Publishing), and the only clear lesson throughout is “Copy, then
Create”. ...obviously the thing to copy here is not ‘intellectual
property’ but rather ‘best practices’.
Copying To Create
JA: I agree! And you have to make it yours, too. But how? By
copying first. That’s the only way. One of my 2012 writing goals is
to get serious about studying the craft in different ways. One way to
do this is to copy out passages you like, passages that strike you as
supremely well written. Dean Wesley Smith equates this to letting
their words flow through your fingers in order to learn both by
analysis and intuitively. Now here’s the thing. Dean says to copy
out in Standard
Manuscript
Format.
He says it a lot, too. Why is this important? I’m not sure, but I
think it has to do with seeing words in the rawest form, without the
pretty font, without the bookish formatting. At any rate, I’ve
decided that this year I’m writing using Standard Manuscript
Format. I’m copying Dean’s method to a T, no exception. And I
suspect that by doing what he does, I’ll not only learn how to
write better (because of all that copying I’ll be doing) but I’ll
also understand, in part, why he thinks Standard Format is the
way to go. Once I understand that, I’ll be free to make it
my own.
Now that I said it, I wonder if I’m just too OCD.
daB: Could be, could be... But I’ll sum it up, I think. It’s
to ‘demystify’ the process, taking the formatting and spellcraft
and sticking the words in Courier New, just like yours. Except
written better. Writers aren’t Wizards, they just Work Harder.
Workshops
daB: I know you’re going to one of those workshops [for
short stories?], and I think that’s an excellent idea, especially
for ‘journeyman’ writers (digression: well. The categories are a
little loose. I’ll give my hand rule: 10 books = journeyman; 100
short stories = journeyman) I haven’t done it for the simple reason
that I’ve had the Pacific Ocean between me and America for 27
months, but I’ll certainly do one of these things at some point in
the next two years. That’s hard-earned practice, intense story,
character voice, plotting, what-have-you practice, and overseen by
Experts.
JA: The workshop I’m attending is the Character Voice &
Setting workshop, a pure craft workshop through and through, and from
what I’ve learned from past attendees, you write around 30,000
words that week, a few short stories as well as a bunch of exercises,
I think. For me, I’m going for two reasons. First, to learn the
skills it teaches. I did choose that workshop, after all. And
second, from what I can tell from his blog, from what others have
said, and a few private email conversations, Dean and I think the
same way, beginning from an analytical standpoint. That’s great for
me, because I have to figure out a way to take the analysis and make
it intuitive, part of the creative process. My hope, beyond learning
character voice and setting, is to learn how to about learning the
craft of writing. Workshops take time and money, so you have to
really suck the marrow out of them when you can attend. You have to
learn how to fish, so to speak, and not just eat that which is given
to you. Needless to say, I’m thrilled about going to this
workshop.
Career
JA: Regarding “journeyman” status, for me it’s a million
words. That was John D. MacDonald’s mark, and Ray Bradbury said you
have to write a million words before you hit the “foothills of good
writing.” I have no idea how much I wrote between 2000 and May
2010, which was when I Got Serious About Writing, but I estimated
about 500,000 words over those ten years. If that’s true, then I’m
at 1,230,000 words overall. If I don’t count those first ten years,
I have 270,000 words to go to hit the million word mark. That’ll
come sometime this year.
daB: Both good, of course, I just prefer to measure by
‘titles’. 1 book/10 stories; beginner , 10 books / 100 stories ;
journeyman , 100 books, 1000 stories ; Expert. It’s metric!
Considering how few people write even 1 book (or, for that matter,
one story) the pecking order of competence isn’t that hard to
figure out. Before I started my blog, I had 1,000,000 trunked words,
masses of plot holes and spelling errors (the stories of some of
which I have salvaged, of course, which is fine.) I don’t really
track my word count, except on a ‘work’ basis, billable hours
(Have I written X,000 words today? 800 words this hour?) Not really
on a yearly basis. I want “at least 4 books a year (i.e. 1 a
quarter) and at least 52 stories (i.e. 1 a week)”
JA: Tracking word count on a yearly basis is just the
outgrowth of tracking word count on a daily basis. I have a
spreadsheet in Numbers (Mac’s version of Excel), and the tracking
keeps me honest. I can see which days I wrote, how much, and I also
have a track record of how I’m doing month-by-month. Which is nice,
in case I want to set up a goal, such as, Break my monthly record,
or what not.
Word Count vs. Projects
JA: Recently, however, I’ve become wary of my obsession with
word counts. The most recent story I wrote took a big turn I didn’t
expect, and once I realized the ending, I had to go back through the
story and add/change what needed to be added/changed in order to make
the ending work. I cycled through the story twice -- once to make the
changes, and a second time to make sure it all worked like I should
-- before I wrote the ending. Took me two days. Didn’t get too many
words written. I freaked a little, then thought, What the hell?
The goal is to write stories, not put words on
paper. So I decided to back off a little on word count this year.
I cut my yearly word count down to something more reasonable. Even
though I’m still tracking daily and month words (I do want to know
just how much I write this year), my real focus is on projects: at
least 4 novels, 20 short stories, and 2 nonfiction works (and that
may change, cutting out short fiction altogether, focusing only on
novels). And that’s conservative, and based largely in part that I
have no idea how long my novels will be, or how long they’ll take
to write. 2012 is the Year of the Novel for me. I’m set on learning
how to write a fricking novel. Short fiction, for me, will happen
between novels and when I have a house full of kids this summer.
daB: I agree on needing to learn how to write a novel. Most of
my books thus far have been ‘long short stories’, but when I
read, say, a John Grisham or, for that matter, a Stephen King...they
don’t feel like that. So, I just need to let it roll, let myself be
free, and let the characters do their thing, until they stop doing
their thing.
Oh, and I just did the math on 4 novels and 52 stories, and it says
500,000 words. (60,000*4)+(5,000*52) This should teach me not to do
math. (I’m going to now ignore that number forever and just
write)
Writing Novels
JA: I must have started anywhere between 10 and 15 novels over
the years, but have finished only 2. I haven’t published any. It
hit me today that my problem has been trying to write a long
novel in the beginning. I mean, we learn by writing short fiction,
right? Why not learn to write novels by writing short novels, around
40,000 to 50,000 words? Why set out to write 100,000 words novels,
especially in this New World of Publishing, when you don’t have to
write that long? So even though my goal is 4 novels, I hope to write
5 or 6 -- maybe even 7 -- short novels. We’ll see.
daB: My very favorite story length is 20,000 words, almost
exactly. I call it a Davidku. It’s long enough for about five
characters, but it only takes 2-3 hours to read. Which is the length
of time I usually have for reading, unless I’m on a bus.
But, I think the secret of writing a 100,000 word novel is to not
write a 100,000 word novel. That is...make some characters, decide a
setting and let them roam and see how far they get. Then kill them
off one by one, with bathos. I assume one of my novels this year will
explode in this sense, and others will be stitched together
‘mini-series’ of three connected 20k stories. They’ll all be
priced at $4.99, so who cares?
JA: True enough. Getting my mind around the freedom of length
has been a difficult adjustment for me. For so long, a short story
was 7,500 words, about 30 pages. So when I’m writing a short story,
as I near the 7000-word mark, I can feel myself tighten a little,
thinking I need to end it. Short fiction length in this New World is
far more fluid than before. Likewise with novels. I have to stop
thinking a novel is a 400-page beast. It’s not. And you’re right,
the best way to write a 100k-word novel is to not try to write
something that long. Just gotta learn to let the story go where it
will.
Good talk!
I don't want this to be the last Convo I do, because I'm too lazy to write my own blog posts now. If you want to have a Convo with me (or Jeff) and have indie published some stuff, hit me up on Twitter where I exist as DavidalBarron, or shoot me an e-mail at DavidalBarron [at] gmail [dot] com !
-daB
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