Why I Don't Write

David Mack wrote, "It's not the writing that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write." I've been thinking a lot on what keeps me from writing, and recently I made a major change to help me work better.

The list of what keeps me from writing is huge. I'm married, have a toddler, homeschool, parent 5 kids, teach programming, blog, fix computers, write newsletters, fix the house, and on and on. But all of those are Things I Have To Do or Things I Should Do. There's an equally large list of Things I Don't Need To Do (or Things I Shouldn't Do Instead of Writing): e-mail, pointless research, blog reading, chicken counting*, books, Sudoku, and more.

I've always been aware that most of what distracts me is on the internet. I sit down at the computer out of habit, and the first thing I do is check my e-mail. I check my feed reader for any updated blogs. If I'm being particularly distracted, I'll do some research I don't need to do or check recent hits on my blogs. Only when I'm sure I've exhausted my interest in the internet, do I start to write. Needless to say, getting my head into writing after repeating this cycle a few times is difficult**.

So in the interest of Getting Things Done, I have made a change. As of yesterday, I check the internet once in the morning and once at night after the kids go to bed. The rest of the day Firefox stays closed. It's not easy, but I think I'll get used to it after a while, and I think it will help.

Mindy Klasky at SFNovelists mentioned a similar self-discipline technique, though she allows Firefox for research, et al. Unfortunately I can't do that. I know myself too well. Instead, I write blog posts offline to be uploaded later. If I need to research something, I make a note of it and look it up that night. If I need a dictionary or thesaurus, I *gasp* use a real paper one. I'm still working out where to get random names, as I make heavy use of online generators for minor characters. Yesterday I used my wife's highschool yearbook.

Mindy also talked about making daily goals for herself. It's a good idea I'm going to try and keep in mind. Today I need to write a blog post (done) and start a short story***.


* A reference to the fable whose moral is "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched." Also known as daydreaming. I waste much more time than I'd like to admit thinking about what things will be like after I get published.

** Everytime I get up, the cycle repeats when I sit back down, and with homeschooling and parenting a little one, the times I need to get up are many. Right now, for example, the Little One is quiet, which means he's doing something he shouldn't be.

*** I know. "Start a short story" is too small and vague to be a good goal. But I can't say "finish it" because I don't think I will, and I can't give a word count because I don't yet know what's reasonable for me, given the aforementioned homeschooling and Little One****.

**** Now that the day is done, I managed to write almost 1,600 words, or about 40% of the story. Not bad.

Better Words

If you didn't already know: in writing, use strong verbs. A common amateur mistake is to toss adjectives and adverbs into a sentence to describe what the character is doing, but strong verbs are so much better. For example:

BAD	GOOD
“I want you to leave,” she said angrily.	“Get out!” she shouted.
He jerkily got into his sporty little car.	He stumbled into his Corvette.

Can you see the difference? If you can't, then trust me. The sentences on the right are much stronger because of the verbs "shouted" and "stumbled" (also because of the more self-explanatory dialogue and the more specific "Corvette").

I've found a thesaurus to be helpful for this, but not helpful enough. Instead, I keep three text files in my writing directory: said.txt, looked.txt, and walked.txt, filled with words to use instead of these common verbs. Today I'm sharing them online.

This is by no means comprehensive, and I welcome suggestions for addition. I'm sure most of you will enjoy suggesting, actually.

said	looked	walked
barked begged bellowed blared bleated blurted cackled chortled coaxed cooed coughed declared demanded echoed exclaimed expounded gasped goaded groaned hacked haggled harped hissed hooted hummed jabbered jeered jested joked moaned mused noted panted pleaded pondered posited pronounced protested purred queried questioned rasped repeated sang screamed shouted sneered sneezed snickered sniffed soothed spat spewed spumed stammered stated stuttered threatened tried trilled trumpeted uttered waffled wailed wavered whined whimpered whispered worried yelled	admired analyzed attended beheld considered contemplated examined eyed eyeballed flashed focused gaped gawked gazed glanced glowered goggled heeded inspected lamped marked minded noted noticed observed ogled peeked peeped peered pored over read regarded scanned scouted scrutinized saw spotted spied stared studied surveyed tended turned viewed watched examined	advanced ambled ambulated ankled cantered dove filed footed it frolicked went hiked hoofed it locomoted lumbered lurched marched meandered paced padded paraded patroled perambulated pitter-pattered plodded pranced promenaded raced roamed roved ran sauntered scuffed shambled shuffled slogged stalked stepped strided strolled strutted stumbled stumped toddled toured traipsed tramped traversed treaded trekked tromped trooped trudged wandered

Pixar Sci-Fi

It's to the point now where my wife and I will see a movie just because Pixar made it. Finding Nemo and The Incredibles are two of my favorite movies of all time. Today, Wall-E didn't move me as much as those two did, but I think that's only because the family and father/son themes resonate much more strongly with me. Which is to say that Wall-E is a good movie, and it's not Pixar's fault that I wasn't moved to tears this time. (MINOR SPOILERS MAY FOLLOW).

I also thought it was interesting from a sci-fi point of view. I've already noticed in my own stories a recurring theme of world-destruction. It's what Travelers is about, and it lies waiting deep in the history of Air Pirates. So I immediately enjoyed seeing another take on what could happen to Earth and to all those colonists who fled and forgot where they came from.

Unfortunately, my brain can't help finding flaws. Part of that is because S.C. Butler wrote a post about Wall-E at SF Novelists. I couldn't get the plant-in-space thing out of my head the entire time, and I found myself watching for other logical absurdities as well.

There were a number of questions that were left unanswered, like how does reproduction work on the Axiom, and why did the Axiom fly so far away from the Earth if they always intended to return, and (perhaps most pressing) why didn't they just shoot the trash into space? Questions that could have been answered, but weren't quite.

One big flaw that bugged me was that the humans who (as far as I could tell) had never walked in their lives, could walk when the plot needed them to. After generations of sedentariness, I don't think their bodies would be able to support their own massive weight. I could've let it go if the movie hadn't specifically mentioned the possibility of "bone loss" (in a video that was meant for colonists returning after 5 years, not 700, but whatever, another unanswered question). It could be explained away by low gravity, but when they got to Earth they had no problems there either.

Like Butler's plant flaw, it didn't ruin the movie for me, but I won't be able to get it out of my head. I don't accept the excuse that "it's a kid's movie" either. The folks who write kid's movies should care about what they do (esp. at Pixar) just as much as those of us who write for adults. After all, when our kids watch a movie over and over again, we have to as well. And the movies that do really well are the ones that both kids and adults enjoy.

Writing Algorithm

There are two kinds of writers*: planners and non-planners.** Planners think, brainstorm, outline, and do all of the other stuff that your writing teachers taught you to do in elementary school. Non-planners just write. Both methods are valid, but if you know me at all then you can guess that I'm an obsessive-compulsive planner.

I have to plan.

Mainly, this is because I don't like major revisions. I know, I know, revision is part of writing - the most important part even, but to me it still feels like wasted work. The idea of writing half of a novel only to then figure out what the story's really about, and consequently throw away that whole first draft, is too painful.

That doesn't mean that everything goes according to plan. It hardly ever does, and no matter how much planning I do, the beginning bits often get heavily reworked by the end of the novel. And so far, in both novels, I didn't really know how the ending would work until I got there.

I've never been good with endings.

Anyway, once the writing begins, I have a pretty established process - so much so, I refer to it as an algorithm:

0. Given: A chapter-by-chapter outline in which each chapter has a 1-2 sentence summary.
   
1. Brainstorm events/scenes that must happen in this chapter.
   
2. Create an event outline of the chapter. The event outline is what actually happens, whether behind the scenes or not.
   
3. Convert the event outline to a plot outline. The plot outline is how I choose to reveal the event outline to the reader - it's what I actually write.
   
4. Write the chapter.
   
5. Read the chapter once and revise it.
   
6. Give the chapter to my wife, Cindy.
   
7. When Cindy finishes reading it (this could be in four days or four months, but I'm writing while I'm waiting), go over it with her.
   
8. Revise the chapter again based on Cindy's critiques.
   

As you can see, I revise as I go. If I make a major plot change, that ends up being wasted time, but most of the time it makes the draft mostly usable by the time I get to the end. It also helps me to feel like I'm accomplishing something; when I say I'm done with X chapters, I mean I'm really done. Basically.


*Actually that's not true. There are as many kinds of writers as there are writers. But stereotyping people with convenient labels is what separates us from the animals.

**I've often seen non-planners referred to as "pantsers", a reference to writing by the seat of one's pants, but since for me this word only conjures images of junior high school bullies, I won't be using it.

Travelers, First Chapter Online

UPDATE (Feb 23, 2010): The first chapter of Travelers is no longer available online as it no longer represents my best work (far from it, in fact). If you really, really, really, really want to read it, you can try and e-mail me for it. But no promises.

For other samples of my work, see "Published Works" in the sidebar, or try the writing samples tag.

On Transports (and Why I'm Glad I'm Doing Them)

In Agent Query's advice on submitting to agents, they suggest pacing yourself, querying batches of no more than 10 agents or so. This is really good advice, I've discovered. Through the evolution of language, my batches have become known as transports. Here are some reasons I'm glad I'm doing transports, and a couple of pieces of advice that I'd wish I'd known:

1. Querying agents is hard. Every single agent has unique requirements about what to send. Even in the query letter (which they all want to see), each agent is looking for something different. What that means is that each query is a unique package, and must be treated as such. I could send a form letter to a hundred agents, but well over 90% of them wouldn't even read it because I didn't follow their rules.
2. Querying is a skill. The query letter and synopsis go through revisions just like the novel, and the more I revise and learn about it, the better I get. If I had queried every agent with my initial query letter, my chances would've been a lot worse than after using what I'd learned.
3. Querying takes time. I probably could've put a whole lot of time into revising the query letter to perfection and personalizing a hundred packages before sending any out, but it would've taken me forever (and some things I wouldn't have learned until I actually did it). And if I had done that, I wouldn't have gotten on to writing the next novel.
4. Waiting takes forever. Every agent takes 1-90 days to get back to me. That's a long time. Emotionally, sending them out in transports is better because I get a more-or-less steady stream of responses to appease my curiosity.
5. ADVICE: When selecting potential agents, there will always be agents that look perfect (A list) and agents that could work (B list). Each batch should have a mix of A-list and B-list agents, so that when you get around to your fourth and fifth batch (if it goes that far), and your query letter and synopsis have been polished even more, you still have A-list agents to query. I wish I had done that.
6. ADVICE: As exciting as it is to query, it really is better to spend a lot of time polishing and researching good query letters beforehand. I did a lot of polishing and research, but not enough. Obviously, I wish I could've sent my current query version out to my first batch of agents, but watcha gonna do?

Of course, I still have yet to receive a positive response from any query, and that's kind of depressing. I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that most authors didn't become published on their first novel. What keeps me going is that Air Pirates is already better than Travelers, and I'm much more well-equipped to query for it when the time comes.

Follow Up Thought on Selling Out

For all my worrying about it, it just occurred to me that by the time I get to the story after Air Pirates, YA could easily be as saturated as male-focused sci-fi is now.

Sigh. Probably better to just tell the story I want to tell, I guess.