Good Friday Special

What Good Friday is all about...

Are You a Liar?

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"All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies."

~ Steve Almond

Call it validation therapy or creative license or even perfidious prevaricating, if you like. But the fact is that if you're a fiction writer, your pants better be on fire. Lying is part of the game.

Yeah, that sounds a little harsh. We've been taught all our lives that lying is one of the Big Ten to be avoided. But before you go running off to light a few hundred repentance candles, allow me to expand this thought.

One of the definitions of the word fiction is:

Invention or fabrication as opposed to fact.

The thing is, when a reader picks up a piece of fiction, they know in the back of their mind that it's not true. There's no deception involved. Readers expect a story world of believable make-believe.

Next time someone asks you what you do, tell them you're a professional liar. It's a great icebreaker, worth the shockfactor in raised eyebrows alone, and fun to count how many times someone's comeback is, "Oh, so you're a lawyer?"

The 4 Steps of Creativity

Personally, I'd like to be stepping through a garden full of tulips but all we've got around here is snow. Apparently winter isn't looking at the calendar. So I'll have to get a bit creative in my thinking to pretend all the white I see is really red and purple. How will I do that? With the following handy dandy list...

THE FOUR STEPS OF CREATIVITY

1. Preparation
This is the work phase. A writer prepares by researching, reading, or revising an earlier work. A musician plays scales. An artist visits art galleries. I just might whip out my gardening books and start planning a layout.

2. Incubation
This is when your conscious and subconscious mind collide to work on an idea, or weed them out, so to speak. The realm of possibilities is where you need to let your thoughts wander. This is the time to sit and ponder and not get sucked into Pinterest or Twitter. I will start thinking of color schemes for my yard.

3. Illumination
This is when the drive finally kicks in and you're at your peak. Ideas are flowing like crazy-go-nuts. You see your story clearly. You know your characters. It's magical. It's at this point you'll mow down anyone silly enough to get in your way as you speed toward your computer...or in my case, as I grab a shovel out of the garage.

4. Implementation
Your ideas are ready to roll. This is when that written piece flows out your fingertips. Or a canvas is slathered with paint. It may not be easy for an outsider to recognize your masterpiece yet, but you know it's there. It might take you awhile, but you keep pounding away at it. These are the gardening days I'm looking forward to when I fall into bed exhausted after working all day in the sun.

One last thought: except for the incubation period, the creative process is generally social. It's a rare great idea that comes from a person sitting an thinking by himself. Networking with others and incorporating their ideas into your own is like the rain on a garden. It helps it (flowers and ideas) to grow.

The Steinbeck Six

Have you read any Steinbeck lately? Have you read any at all? Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men. Tortilla Flat. Steinbeck's writing is raw and real and not for the faint of heart. Why in the world would I recommend him, then? Because his writing is so vivid and jaw-droppingly beautiful.

And that's why today I'm sharing his top 6 writing tips.

1. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

2. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it--bypass it and go on. You can come back to it later and then you may find that the reason it gave you trouble is because it didn't belong there.

3. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest.

4. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day. It helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

5. If you are using dialog, say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

6. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that it sometimes helps to pick out a real person you know, or an imagined one, and write to that one.

I'll Really Be Happy When...

I finish my manuscript.
An agent answers my query.
I sign with an agent.
A publisher asks for my full.
I get a contract.
X amount of copies of my book sell.
I hit the Bestseller List.
I get asked to speak as a keynote presenter.

Honestly, do I need to go on? Because I could. The point is that if your happiness, or feeling of success, or fill-in-the-blank emotion depends upon reaching milestone after milestone, you'll NEVER be content. Why? Because that's following your agenda. What if God's agenda is different from yours?

This applies not only to writing, but pretty much everything in your life. Here's a bone for you to chew on for awhile...

"Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him." 

(1 Cor. 7:17)

Shakin' It Writerly Style

Have you seen a Harlem Shake yet? All the krazy kids are doing it...which means it's kind of mandatory that I give it a whirl.

Hungry for more? Here are my two favorites...
Miami Heat
MN Timberwolves

Divas Need Not Apply

"It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously."

~ Peter Ustinov

The second a writer thinks they're somebody, they've crossed into the land of divadom. Don't go there. It's a very lonely place.

Assuming you're an aspiring writer who wants to take your writing responsibilities seriously, it would be helpful to know what they are exactly, hmm? Never fear. Here's a handy dandy list.

The Top 5 Responsibilities of a Writer

1. Immerse a reader into a world different from their own...yet not so different that they can't relate to it.

2. Impart truth via story without standing on a soapbox and pointing a finger.

3. Entertain but not waste time doing so.

4. Write the absolute best kick-butt prose that'll make a reader see the mundane in a way they've never before thought of.

5.  Be real.