As a writer, I dive into the waters of my imagination.  I hold my breath and pull treasures from the depths.  Eventually, I have to come up for air, and as solitary as the journey was, I’m not alone when I return to the real world.  I have my family.

Writing is a solitary, sometimes lonely craft, but a writer still has their family.  And writing has an impact on that family.

In my case, the impact is relatively small.  Sometimes, I’m not available.  It’s not much different than when I go to band practice.  There are nights where I am obligated to take part in an activity.  The difference between writing and most other activities is that if I don’t write, I start to get depressed.  Writers that don’t write are unhappy people, and I don’t like being unhappy around my family.

I need to write, but I don’t always need to leave my family completely out of the activity.  Sometimes, my wife goes with me when I go to Starbucks.  She sits near me with her iPad and reads, drinking a fancy drink, and I hunch over my Surface and block out the world.

A couple of years ago, my daughter tried NaNoWriMo with me.  I was so happy that I went out and bought laptops for her and her brother.  Neither one of us succeeded that year, but she got a lot closer than I did.  She opted not to join me in NaNoWriMo last year.  I don’t think she’ll be joining me this year, either.

Both my wife and my daughter are voracious readers.  My daughter treats books the way I treat them, in fact.  She holds them carefully, so as not to break the spine.  This is not a behavior that I taught her, and it drives her Mom crazy sometimes.

My son is not crazy about books.  He doesn’t like writing, and he probably thinks I’m crazy for intentionally engaging in such activity.  He doesn’t hold it against me.  He just doesn’t participate.

 

The constant challenge is finding the room in my life for both writing and maintaining the relationships in my family.  This goes back to why time management is so important, but it’s not just time.  It’s also space.  Where do I go to write in the house where I won’t be disturbed, and where I won’t be disturbing anyone else by trying to making the area a place I can write?  I’ve mentioned before that the kitchen table is out.  My bedroom is also out, because it’s just too uncomfortable.

That leaves the backyard and my garage.  Both places are difficult to endure at different times of the year due to the weather.  The garage is at least covered, and in the winter, I can use a space heater underneath my desk.  But sometimes it feels like a dark and cave.

 

What is the lesson to take away from this?  I think there are two things:

Communicate with your family honestly about your writing, what it means to you, and what you need.

They’re going to get it.  My family has lived with me when I haven’t been writing for a while, and they’ve seen me miserable.  They know that I’m a better person to live with when I’m writing.

What they don’t necessarily know is what they can do to help facilitate my writing.  I’ve talked with my wife about the environment I need, and what it’s like for me.  Armed with that knowledge, she’s more accepting of my Wednesday evenings at Starbucks.  She understands why I can’t write when someone’s visiting me in the garage.  We’ve talked about having a little sign that I can post, to distinguish between “Brian is writing at his computer” and “Brian is screwing around on his computer, playing games.”

Be considerate of your family, and recognize their needs.

I know that my wife wants to see me sometimes, and talk to me, and she wants me to listen to her about her day.  She works just like I do, only she also does more around the house than I do.  The least I can do is listen to her about her day, and ask how she’s doing.

My kids are teenagers, and they mostly just want to do their own thing and be left alone.  Being a good Dad, I know that they also need to be checked in on from time to time, and encouraged.  My kids know that I love them, but it doesn’t hurt to remind them from time to time.

 

It’s not always easy, but it’s important to find the balance between writing and family life.  Sometimes, you have to go off and work on your story.  Other times, you need to put the laptop away and take your family out.  And sometimes, you can pack the family and the laptop into the car, and satisfy both needs.  It takes communication, patience, and setting reasonable expectations.

To start this post, I looked for a quote about perfectionism.  I found one that’s perfect.

“Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.” — Anne Wilson Schaef

 

I’m a little bit of a perfectionist, and a teeny-tiny bit obsessive-compulsive.  I’m also probably a little bit bipolar, but that’s a (painful) topic for another post.

So when I say I’m a perfectionist, what do I mean?

I don’t like doing something if I can’t do it right.  “Good enough” is almost never good enough.  When I’m working on a project, I don’t just spit it out and move on.  I obsessive over it, continuously tweaking and adjusting, as reluctant to give it up as an oyster with its pearl.

This isn’t to say that I’m perfect.  It doesn’t even mean I’m necessarily good at the things I try.  It just means that when something isn’t right, I hang on and stress over it way longer than I should.

And I know that a lot of people say that they’re perfectionists when they aren’t.  Maybe I’m one of those people.  But if you ask my wife if I’m a perfectionist, she’ll probably say yes, and then point at my side of the closet.

 

So how does that influence my writing?

For starters, it makes my writing slower.  I get hung up on the little things.  I obsess longer than I should over things that just don’t matter.

The worst thing, though, is that I have a tendency to edit while I’m still working on the first draft.

On the positive side, my first drafts come out very clean.  Many people have read my first drafts and told me that they thought it was a second or third draft.  That seems good, except that all first drafts are crap, mine included.  I still need to go back and edit everything I do.  If I just waited to edit my work until the entire first draft was done, I would have greater perspective on the things that need editing, and the whole process would be faster.

 

I have a powerful inner editor.  It’s more like an inner demon, especially when I’m being particularly perfectionist.  Nothing healthy ever comes from being a perfectionist with a first draft.  Only unnecessary stress, and then feelings of guilt when the project is slow, and falls behind expected goals.

 

This is one of the reasons that NaNoWriMo is awesome.  When I participated in NaNoWriMo last year, I got behind.  The perfectionist editor inside my head kept on chattering as I was plugging along, making me go back and fix tiny things that could be fixed later.  The editor kept hounding me, deep into the month of November… and then stopped.  I reached a point where if I was going to finish the project, I had to get words on the page, no matter the quality.  NaNoWriMo forced me to abandon perfectionism, if only for a few days.

 

If you are a perfectionist and you’re looking at starting a story, find a way to silence that part of you long enough to get the first draft done.  I know that it’s easier said than done.  I’ve only been able to do it a few times, but when I’ve done it, I’ve managed to finish stories.  Do whatever you need to in order to get the first draft out of your head and onto the page.  Bribe yourself.  Trick yourself.  Keep telling yourself that you can be a perfectionist on the next draft, which is the truth.  There’s time for making it perfect later.

Most importantly, be kind to yourself.  I know that when I turn a scrutinizing eye towards myself, I can be quite vicious.  Being a perfectionist with writing is an avenue to self torture, and it won’t make you produce work any faster, or of any higher quality.  So don’t do that.

And if you know how, please share with me.

“Write what you know” — Mark Twain

 

As I’ve stated other places, I’m a programmer, a musician, a married man, and a father of two.  I was in the Air Force for 6 years.  I like computer games, board games, card games, and roleplaying games.  I’m well-rounded.

So what do I write about?

• A repoman that discovers he’s psychic
• A group of amnesiac warriors in a fantasy world that’s been pacified
• A couple of baggage handlers in the future that discover a body
• A person getting lost and discovering who they are in virtual reality
• A boy going through his right of manhood to discover that he may be the bane to his nomadic people

I’m not writing about programmers, fathers, or veterans.  One of the stories I listed involves gaming, but it’s actually the weakest story I’ve written, and may wind up being one of those stories that never goes anywhere.

So why am I not taking Mark Twain’s advice, and writing what I know?

There are a few reasons.

 

I’m already spending enough time with the things I know.

I like being a programmer.  I like the creativity and the problem solving.  I like that I’m able to make money as a programmer.  I work very hard at it, and I strive to become better at it.  When I can, I even try to teach high school kids how to be programmers.

I’m not so in love with programming that I want to write about it.  I spend enough of my day in that world that I don’t need to bring it into all aspects of my life.

 

I’m in a different mindset when I’m writing from the other activities.

When I sit with a band, I’m thinking about the music in front of me, the instrument in my hand, and the people around me.  While we’re playing, I’m constantly listening and adjusting how I’m playing to produce the best music I can.

When I sit down to program, I’m thinking about the problems I’m trying to solve.  I pour over the code that’s already been written.  I scribble on whiteboards and I create flowcharts.

When I sit down to write, I shut out the rest of the world, and I listen to the voice I’ve created in my head that reads from my imagination.  I adjust the words as I write them.  I focus my energy and thoughts on telling a story, navigating the narrative to places that I’ve thought about in advance.  Or sometimes, I discover places that I hadn’t expected.

They’re all different mindsets.  When I sit down to be a writer, I functionally stop being a programmer or musician.  Thinking about programming pulls me out of the right head-space for writing.

 

Other fiction writers get the things I know wrong.

The first two reasons I listed are admittedly a little weak.  This one is getting much closer to the heart of it.

When “Broken Arrow” came out, I was stationed at Holloman AFB.  I saw the movie in the theater surrounded by other Air Force personnel that were familiar with the F-117 fighter.  So when the camera went to the inside of the fighter and the pilot said, “Switching to stealth mode,” the audience around me groaned.

For those of you that don’t know, the F-117 is “stealthy” because of its shape and its paint.  When they were first testing the design, they had a big foam mock-up shaped like the fighter, covered in the special paint.  The mock-up was shot with a radar, and for a moment, the engineers thought that the design had failed, because there was a solid blip on their screen.  A moment later, the bird that had been perched on the mock-up flew off, and the display on the radar cleared.

There is no stealth mode.  Yes, when the landing gear is down, the plane is more visible on radar.  But that’s not what the movie was portraying.

I know lots of little details like that.  So when fiction gets those details wrong, it annoys me.

I don’t want to get wrapped up in those details.  I don’t want to risk lowering the quality of my story by getting too involved in details that are only going to appeal to a fraction of my audience.

 

I don’t entertain myself with a lot of fiction involving the things I know.

We’re getting very, very close to the heart of the matter, now.

Because the little details break my immersion and annoy me when they’re wrong, I’m hesitant to get into fiction that pertains to my unique skill set.  I’ve been burned too many times.  I already mentioned “Broken Arrow.” There was also “Outbreak” and “The Net” off the top of my head.  These are movies that got things so wrong that I remember them because of the mistakes.  Some people remember “Swordfish” because of Halle’s berries.  I remember it because it was impossible in bad ways.

When I see that a movie coming out with a plot that hinges on a field I know, I wait until other people have gone to see it first.

I don’t invest a lot of time in fiction that relates to fields I know about.  Therefore, I don’t have a lot of experience with that kind of fiction.  What business do I have writing fiction that I’m unfamiliar with?  That’d be like submitting stories to a magazine I’ve never read.

 

Let’s get right to it.  The real reason I don’t “write what I know” is:

I write what interests me.

I’d been reading The Dresden Files for weeks before NaNoWriMo last year, and that influenced me.  Before that, I’d been reading The Game of Thrones books, so I started a dark fantasy story.  Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Brandon Sanderson, so I imagine The Way of Kings is going to have an influence on my up-and-coming NaNoWriMo project.

It doesn’t make sense to write about something that you’re not interested in.  For some people, writing is an excuse to learn.  So why not write about something you know nothing about?  The process of writing on a subject teaches the writer about the subject.

When you start a writing project, you’re committing to an investment of time and energy.  The subject needs to interest you, otherwise you will not be able to keep the commitment.

 

I’m sure I could write a decent story about a programmer.  I’m not afraid that I would do a poor job.  I’m just more interested in writing about a very spiritual young man that’s good with a staff, and his struggles with abandonment issues. (I hope I finish the book, so that the sentence I just wrote will be hilarious.)

 

My advice to anyone that’s just struggling with writing: Write what you care about, whether you know something about it or not.

Procrastination.

Two main obstacles stand in my way to realizing my full potential as a writer: fear and procrastination.

Fear, I have some experience facing.  I can talk myself down from fear.  I can talk with other people about fear, and they’ll get it.  In fact, there’s not much more American than good old fashioned fear.  Just look at the news.  Look at how the media deals with Ebola.

Procrastination is another story.  It’s also American, for sure.  If you call it laziness, you can dress it up with a baseball hat, hand it a hotdog, and march it around to Yankee-Doodle.

We all procrastinate, but we rarely celebrate it like we do fear.

Instead, we equate procrastination with weakness and poor character.  We look at procrastinating kids and ponder the possibility that they might have attention deficit disorder.  When someone is distracted, we wonder what’s wrong with them.

We scold someone for procrastinating, but we sympathize with someone for freezing up due to fear.

Maybe we’re being a little harsh.

Why do I procrastinate?  When I’m working on a project, whether it’s writing or programming, why do I keep looking at my Facebook status?  Why do I open a browser and start reading the news when what I should be doing is creating an outline for my NaNoWriMo story?  Why do I check my twitter when I should be writing code?

Sometimes, it’s fear that leads to procrastination.  The size of a problem can be intimidating.  Sometimes, I’m uncertain about how well I’m going to do, and the manifestation of my fear looks like dilly-dallying.

It’s not always fear, though.  Here are some other reasons I procrastinate:

 

Lack of clarity

This is easier for me to diagnose with my programming than it is with my writing, but the problem exists in both places.  If I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next, I wander off.  Sometimes, I’ll be handed a requirements document that is vague to the point of uselessness.  Or, when I’m writing a scene, if I find myself looking at my phone, it’s often because I don’t know what comes next.

With writing, clarity can be found be taking a step back to take a look at the big picture.  This might be a matter of consulting notes, creating new notes to fill in some of the gaps.  Sometimes, it’s enough to just take a long walk, and let the ideas gel on their own.  Since I started taking long walks every day, my productivity has gone up.

 

Other interests need fed

I like a lot of different things.  I like music, both listening and playing.  I also like movies.  I have interests in religion and politics.  And I love games, whether they are electronic or not.

If I don’t intentionally feed my other interests, I will find myself feeding them unintentionally.  When I’m procrastinating, if I stop and take a look at what I’m doing, I usually find that it is something related to an activity I haven’t been indulging.  When I stop playing video games for too long, I find myself opening solitaire or minesweeper.  If it’s been a while since I’ve seen a good movie, I often divert myself by spending more time crawling through YouTube.

Lately, I haven’t spent a lot of time with friends, so I’ve spent more time on Facebook and Twitter than usual.

Often, watching videos on YouTube is just watching videos on YouTube.  But if I’m spending an inordinate amount of time watching Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop, maybe I just need to take a break and play a board game with friends and family.

 

The environment promotes distraction

There are places where I get more work done than others.  The Starbucks I visit every Wednesday is a great place for me to get writing related activities accomplished.  The kitchen table at home, on the other hand, is a terrible place, either because of the noise from the TV or because it is a high traffic area.

Sometimes, to get something done, I have to distance myself from the internet.  A couple of weeks ago, when my family wanted to go to the beach, that was the perfect time for me to finish critiquing a story for my monthly writer’s group.  There was no internet in the car on the way to the beach or once we were there, so I couldn’t distract myself with other pursuits.

The siren’s song of cat videos and internet memes can be silenced, and needs to be silenced from time to time.  Other times, the noise is more real, like at the office where I work.  I’m in a cube, and some of the noise at work leads to procrastination.  That’s when headphones come in handy.

If your environment isn’t helping, change your environment.

 

Sometimes it’s just boring

This is a scary one, because if you’re bored with your story, how are your readers going to feel?  Procrastination due to boredom can be a sign that the scene you’re working on needs to change, or possibly be eliminated.

It’s not always that, though.  Sometimes, it’s difficult to tell.  For example, when I’ve “spoiled” a scene for myself, I don’t feel quite as motivated to write it.  It’s not that it’s a bad scene.  It’s just that there isn’t anything for me to discover, and all that’s left is the toiling over making words work.

Writers need to learn to enjoy writing sentences, and getting into the craft to sustain them through the parts where there is no discovery.  I can do that most of the time.  The rest of the time, I wander off, and opportunities are lost.

One answer is to push through, finding the enjoyment where you can find it, and just shoulder to the grindstone the rest of the time.  Another answer, which I honestly haven’t taken advantage of, is to skip the boring part and move on to something more interesting.  Come back and do the hard stuff later, when your frame of mind is better for that kind of writing.

 

Those are some reasons why I procrastinate, and even a few ways to solve the underlying problems.  That’s not the only issue with procrastination, however.

Look at synonyms for procrastination, and you will find words with scalding connotations.  Lazy.  Loafing.  Trifling.

One of my bigger problems with procrastination is how I treat myself afterwards.  I need to learn to forgive myself.  I just listed a number of reasons why I might procrastinate, and yet, I forget all that when I catch myself slacking off.

We’re not machines.  Sure, the t-shirt that says “A writer is a machine that turns caffeine into stories” is funny, but it doesn’t leave a lot of room for forgiveness.  Especially if you’re like me, and you don’t ingest caffeine anymore.

Something I need to work on, and maybe you do, too, is rewarding success rather than punishing procrastination.  I need to learn to set achievable goals, with milestones if the tasks are particularly large.  Then, when goals are met, I need to give myself a treat.  Positive reinforcement is going to go a lot further than calling myself a shiftless pretender.

 

Those are my thoughts on procrastination.  If you have some of your own, please share.  You know, if you don’t get too distracted.

“If you only knew the power of the Dark Side.” — Darth Vader

 

I have a lot of thoughts on villains.  I’ve been contemplating villains and villainy for as long as I’ve been writing.  Some villains leap off the page or screen, and some fall flat.

People have different preferences when it comes to villains.  Bear in mind that as I lay out my thoughts, I’m going to be talking about my preferences.  This may be one of those subjects where there is no single answer to getting villainy correct.

 

Villains and monsters aren’t necessarily the same thing

It’s possible for a villain to be a monster.  I’m thinking of Hannibal Lecter.  When he’s committing horrible acts of cruelty or barbarism, he is clearly a monster.  When he’s seducing Clarice into his confidences, he’s a villain.  In my opinion, it’s when he’s speaking smoothly and intelligently that he seems the most sinister.

The difference between a monster and a villain is the level of their humanity.  Dracula illustrates this, by the different ways that his story is told.  Sometimes Dracula is painted as a sympathetic, lonely soul.  And then there’s Bram Stoker, who wrote him as a soulless creature, a true terror of the night.  The shapshifting, shameless bloodsucker is a monster.

Other monsters: Spider-man’s foe, Venom.  Godzilla.  And Emperor Palpatine.  The Joker.

 

A good villain is motivated

One of the ways you can tell the difference between a villain and a monster is to simply look at their motivations.  Is the character doing terrible things for a purpose?  If the answer seems to be No, then they’re a monster.

I like monsters just fine, but I prefer villains.  I love villains.

Macbeth is one of my favorite villains.  It is argued that he is a tragic hero, and not a villain.  I say he’s both.  He meets the definition of a tragic hero, but he also meets the definition of a villain.  I don’t want to get too much into semantics.  I want to focus on what can be learned from Macbeth for constructing a good villain (whether he is one or not).

Macbeth was tempted, and he was motivated.  Wealth and power is put before him, and he resists until the love of his life pressures him.  His motivations early on are clear, and his struggles are understandable and human.  Then, once he’s compromised his integrity, it becomes easier for him to commit greater and greater atrocities.

 

A good villain is relatable

I’m drawn to characters that I can relate to.  Roy Batty from Bladerunner, though not human, demonstrates the most basic of human motivations: to live.  Magneto, ruthless in his pursuits, ultimately desires something noble: freedom and equality for people of his kind.

 

A good villain is a good character

This is a much bigger idea than the others, because a lot goes into making a character good.  The character should be memorable.  The character should have depth.  The character should be important to the story.

 

I wanted to give some examples of villains that didn’t do it for me, but one of the problems with poorly crafted villains is that they are so forgettable.  Most characters that do evil just for the sake of doing evil?  Characters that have only style, and no substance?  Mustache twirling, cloak swirling, cackling, megalomaniacs that just want to tie women to railroad tracks?  Those are not my favorite.

A good villain, to me, is one that could have been the hero, if circumstances were different.  In fact, if a story has a good, compelling villain, it doesn’t need as strong a hero.

I was going to talk about “Villains” tonight, but I got distracted by a game.  I was so distracted, in fact, that I’m perilously close to failing the Blog-tober challenge.  I better type quickly.

The game I was playing is called “Gone Home” and it is an interactive story.

I don’t want to give any spoilers.  In fact, I want to encourage anyone that hasn’t played it to go to Steam, give them $20, and get this.  You will not regret it.

In the game, you are Katie, and you’ve just come home after being abroad for a year.  Your flight was late, so you’re getting to your home in the middle of the night during a heavy storm.

And that’s really all I can tell you without giving things away.

It’s not a long game.  If you’re like me and you look around and stumble around lost for a bit, you’ll invest about 4 hours.  And, if you’re like me, at the end of those 4 hours you will be touched.  I very nearly cried, and that’s saying something.

I’ve heard that there are other games that are essentially interactive stories that I should play.  I’ve heard good things about Last of Us, Walking Dead, and Wolf Among Us.  I haven’t picked them up yet, but I think I probably should.

Playing “Gone Home” is good for writers.  It demonstrates how setting can impact the mood.  It shows in a very visual way how different story lines can be woven together.  Since it’s an interactive story, it’s possible to consume some of the story out of order, which demonstrates non-linear story telling in a unique way.

It’s… it’s just a good story.  Trust me.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Villains.  Now it’s time for me to go to bed, but I’m going to have to stop and give my daughter a hug on the way.  Once you’ve played “Gone Home,” you’ll understand why.

For a while, I was participating on Twitter on Wednesday evenings with the #GenreChat community.  It was an amazing group of people interested in speculative fiction.  They showed up every week and discussed topics posted by Genre Underground.  It was a little bit of a distraction from my normal writing time, but it was delicious.  Plus, it made me think about speculative fiction in different ways.

What happened to it?  Well, the main organizer behind it became really busy, and schedule conflicts prevented them from continuing.  I tried to hold it together for a little while, but I was only able to keep people’s interest for a couple of weeks.

Why is genre important?  Why should we be talking about it?  At the end of the day, a well written, intelligent story is excellent, no matter what genre it is labeled with, right?  If one were to look at Kurt Vonnegut, it would seem genre is just marketing.  Vonnegut’s stories dealt with science fiction, but he didn’t call them science fiction stories, and he didn’t call himself a science fiction writer.

On the surface, it seems like applying a genre to a story is an aspect of marketing and sales.  Readers have certain tastes, and it’s easier for a reader to find a story they like if similar works are grouped together.  So genre is all about selling books, right?

Partially.  Calling genre a marketing tool leaves out a number of other defining qualities.

 

Genre is about setting reader expectations.

Readers of science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance… whatever their flavor of choice, they develop certain expectations and assumptions.  Certain patterns are followed in different stories, based on their genre.  Fantasy can have magic.  Science fiction can have technology.  Horror can have monsters.  If you’re going to have a wizard in your story, your reader will forgive you if you tell them upfront that it’s a fantasy story.  If you try and pull one of the common tropes from one genre and put it in another, you better do it well, or you run the risk of upsetting your readers.

 

Genre is about community.

Good fiction inspires passion, and passionate people seek people that share their interest.  It’s not just a matter of setting expectations, and preparing a reader for the flavor of their story.  Genre implies a nuanced, unspoken language.  And there’s no greater place to speak that language than with a community of similarly minded individuals.

This is one of the reasons I love going to conventions.  I can geek out without fear.  I can share my passion with people and let my guard down a little, because I know that the people I’m talking to are connected to me through our shared interest.  It feels comfortable.

A convention center isn’t required for a community to enjoy the genre of their choice.  The Twitter group was excellent.  Writer’s groups can be fantastic.  Online forums.  Mailing lists.

 

Genre helps the writer focus their story.

Just as the reader’s expectations are adjusted when they select a particular genre to read, a set of tropes are laid out in front of a writer when he chooses to write in a certain genre.  Some things don’t have to be explained as much.  Certain patterns become available, which can be comfortable for both the reader and the writer.

Of course, some of the greatest stories are the ones that turn the genre on its head, challenging the patterns and tropes.  Sometimes they create new ones.

 

People ask me what I do, and I say, “I’m a full time programmer, part time writer.” I get varied reactions to this.  Some people think those two activities go hand in hand, while other people marvel at how I can have such diverse outlets.

The truth is, the two pursuits use different parts of my brain, but they draw from the same energy source.

 

What it’s like when I program

Programming is one part problem solving, one part creativity, and one part mindless plodding.

When I sit down to write some software, I start with a plan.  We call it them “requirements.” Sometimes the requirements are more well formed than others.  The requirements describe the problem to be solved, and often examples of how to test and make sure the problem is actually solved.

When I write software, I try to be succinct.  I try to make the code maintainable and functional, accomplishing the task as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Sometimes I work with other programmers.  Sometimes I work alone.  Sometimes I have to make it fancy.  Sometimes I just have to make it get do its job, without anyone seeing how it works.

When I’m deep in the zone, I can listen to music, as long as it isn’t too distracting.  It can have words, and I can even sing along with music while I’m programming.

I use a whiteboard to sketch out parts that are unclear.  When I’m tackling particularly complicated problems, I’ll write out comments first, which effectively sketches out a map of what the code I’m about to write will look like.

 

What it’s like when I write

Writing is one part isolation, two parts creativity, and one part obsessive compulsive disorder.  Some people include caffeine, but I’ve been off caffeine for about 7 years.

When I sit down to write a story, I start with an idea.  Sometimes it’s a big idea that I’ve mulled over for a long time.  Sometimes, all I have is a vague concept.  If I have too much of the idea mapped out, I lose interest in writing the story, because I’ve already spoiled it for me.  If I don’t have enough of the idea mapped out, then I wander around aimlessly for a while, until I find my way.

When I write fiction, I am not succinct, which is okay in the first draft.  I tend to use too many words, and my sentences are too long, especially in action sequences.  It’s okay, though, because eventually, there will be editing.  And with the editing, brevity is sought.  Parts are cut.  Sentences are made shorter.

I have not written a serious story with anyone else.  I can sit down with other people and write, but it would be confusing to say that I write with other people.

When I’m in the zone while writing, it doesn’t matter what else is going on around me.  I’m in another world.

I cannot listen to music and write.  If there is a movie going on in the same room, I can’t write, even if I can’t see the screen.  If there is an interesting conversation going on near me, I can’t write.  For me to write, I need to be able to hear the words I’m typing, and I need to be able to listen to the words in my head without interruption.

When I’m planning to write a story, I open OneNote on my Surface and I hand write some notes.  Sometimes I write sequences of events.  Sometimes I ask myself questions that I think the reader will ask, then jot down the answers.  I write down brief thoughts and descriptions of the characters.

I can tell when I’m writing well by how often I look at my notes.  If I’m looking at them a lot, then I’m stalling, because I don’t know what I need to do with the story at that moment of time.  When things are going, I don’t look at my notes at all, because I don’t need to.

 

Comparisons

Both activities are sedentary.  Both activities involve a lot of typing, and I actually get a primal satisfaction from hearing that clackety-clack of the keyboard with both activities.  Both activities involve a lot of trial and error.  Both activities involve “drafts,” where I get an implementation of my ideas down, then go back and debug or edit later.

With programming, the work I do can be eloquent, but it is always dry and barren.

With writing, I strive for eloquence and words that transport someone else to a place in my imagination.

I write software in order to meet a set of goals.  An external source requests a set of features and functionality, and I strive to meet the demand.

I write stories in order to express myself.  All of the drive and impetus comes purely from within.  At this point, the only one clamoring for my stories is myself and my wife.

I get paid to program.

I do not get paid to write.

 

Conclusion

I enjoy both activities.  I am truly fortunate to have found and capitalized on some of the opportunities put before me.  It wasn’t easy, and there were no hand-outs.  I worked hard to become a programmer, and to get into the position I’m in now.

I suppose I’m greedy, because I want to make money as a writer, too.  I’m still quite a ways from getting there, but I’ve received enough encouragement to believe that it might not be a pipe dream.  I just need to keep working at it, one day at a time.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that both activities draw from the same energy source, and that’s true.  They both rely on my ability to focus, and focus takes willpower and drive.  I only have so much focus each day.  Most days, I don’t really have enough to both program and write.

When I’m deeply involved with either programming or writing, the other suffers.  I don’t know what to do about that.  I have a job to do, and people depending on me to get that job done.  But I also feel a need to pursue my writing dreams, because when I stopped that pursuit, I was extremely depressed.

If you have an answer, leave a comment and let me know.  At this point, I don’t know how to keep all of the plates spinning.

 

As solitary as writing can be, there is comfort in knowing that other people out there are going through the same triumphs and fears.  Over the years, I’ve collected bookmarks for writer’s blogs that I find interesting or inspirational.

These are shared in no particular order.

 

Tristan’s Blog

Tristan is a friend of Sean “Day 9” Plott.  More importantly, he’s a very talented writer that periodically shares interesting insights about being a writer on his blog.  He doesn’t seem to post very frequently, and I don’t check it that often.  But cruising through his archive, he has a number of good posts on writing.

 

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

She used to post quite a bit more to the main page.  Again, this isn’t a blog I frequent a lot.  I usually check it once a month or so.  She has a number of articles on writing, with some great ones focusing on the business side.

 

Dean Wesley Smith

I’m going to be honest.  I have not read very much from his blog.  I’ve checked in from time to time, and I’ve meant to dive into some of his posts, but I mostly added him to my list of bookmarks after sitting in on one of his panels in Reno.  The way he described writing resonated with me.  He’s exceptionally prolific.

 

Em’s Place

Emma Newman is simply wonderful.  I met her in Chicago, and she was extremely generous with her time and her advice.  In addition to being open and friendly, she’s a very talented writer, with a hugo nominated podcast, Tea and Jeopardy.  I’ve listened to her book Between Two Thorns on audio, which she narrated.  I also subscribed to an RSS feed of her posts, so I read whatever she posts as soon as she posts it.

 

M Todd Gallowglas

Almost any time I reference “Michael” in my posts, I’m talking about this guy.  He’s one of my oldest friends, and he’s been a huge encouragement in my writing pursuits.  He’s independently published several successful series, and he performs live storytelling shows.  As Brandon Sanderson says, “M Todd Gallowglas is the real deal.”

 

Katana / Pen

I met Setsu at Convolution 2013, when she and I were both in the same writer’s workshop.  Later, we tried forming a writer’s group, but there were some logistical problems keeping that going.  She’s recently had some great successes, with one of her stories published in a Happily Never After, and the launch of a radio play, “Unfortunate Demonic Incident Number 271.” Setsu is bold in the places where I am timid.  In addition to blogging about writing, she also talks about feminism and martial arts.

 

Lauren Sapala

I have not met Lauren in person, though we almost got to meet at Convolution 2014.  Lauren is a writer and a writing coach.  She frequently posts amazingly helpful articles on how to get past the hurdles that are part of being a writer.  I’ve subscribed to her RSS feed, and read all of her articles as soon as she posts them.

 

Hugh Howey

Hugh is a successful, independent author, probably best known for Wool.  I got to sit down at a Kaffeeklatch with him in Chicago, and I knew immediately that if I’m ever successful as a writer, I want to be exactly like Hugh Howey.  He was friendly and approachable.  He was delighted to meet up with people at the convention, and gave us each a copy of his book.

I’m subscribed to an RSS feed for his posts, and read them when they come in.  He mostly writes about independent and self-published writing.  Lately, his focus has been on what’s been going on with Hatchet and Amazon.

 

Jennifer at Leasspell

Jennifer was one of the pros in one of the writer’s workshops I attended at Convolution 2014.  Like Emma Newman, Jennifer has been very encouraging.

I’ve only had Jennifer’s blog on my radar for a few weeks.  One of her more recent posts featured J. L. Doty, someone I’ve talked about here before.

 

There are other blogs I read from time to time, but these are the ones I have bookmarked.

If you have suggestions for some blogs I should add to my list, please feel free to leave a comment, and I’ll check it out!

“Where do you get your ideas from?”

It’s a common question I receive shortly after I tell someone that I’m a writer.  Some people follow it up by telling me one of their own ideas, informing me that I can use it if I like.  I always politely decline.

The unhelpful answer is that my ideas come from all over the place.  Sometimes they’re purely internal.  Other times, I experience something, that creates a spark.  I have ideas all the time.  In fact, I have more story ideas than I have time to write.

If I needed to be specific about where my story ideas came from, this is what I’d say:

 

Gaming

A link exists in my head between gaming and writing.  And when I say “gaming” I specifically mean tabletop roleplaying games.  World of Warcraft once inspired me to write a poem about an elven hunter, but graphical, computer based RPGs don’t trigger my writing itch like tabletop RPGs.

The Repossessed Ghost was born from a character I played in a tabletop game.  The character is quite a bit different, and none of the other elements from the game are present in the story.  I started with a character idea, and then created a world and a story for him to play in.

The novel I’m starting in November is similar.  I created a character for an online, text-based RPG named Simon.  I had a lot of fun with him, and I’ve known for years that I want to take the core of who he is and stick him in another world.  In a little over two weeks, I’m going to start the story I’ve been putting off.  I’m really excited to see where this goes!

Gaming is a great way for me to develop the personality and the voice of a character.  It is not so great a place for me to develop plots.  For that, I turn to…

 

Real life experiences

I was in the airport last year, on my way to San Antonio for WorldCon.  I looked out the window and saw one of those little trucks whisk by, luggage piled in a heap on the back.  All around me stood other travelers, waiting to get on the plane.  Below us, our belongings were already traveling.

It got me thinking about how our baggage takes a completely different trip than we do.  From there, my mind made the leap to, “What if our bodies were baggage?”

I thought about cramped seats, crying babies, popping ears, and the slow shamble we all must endure when boarding and leaving the plane.  I thought about all the things I hate about flying, and then I thought about a joke: “They’re always looking for the black box.  The black box.  Why don’t they make the whole plane out of the stuff they make the black box out of?”

And then I had my short story idea.  Shortly after returned from WorldCon, I wrote Unclaimed Goods.

 

Tragedy

Sometimes, my motivation for writing isn’t to tell a story.  Every once in a while, I write to work through something.  The first novel, which some of my family has seen, was inspired from my Dad’s death.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I wrote it in order to help deal with my grief.

Shortly before I joined the Air Force, I experienced a different sort of loss.  I’m not going to go into the details, other than to say that my faith was shaken.  I wrote a very dark short story to deal with it.  It was blasphemous, really.  I poured all of my doubt and feelings of betrayal into it.  I’ve only shown it to one person, and I don’t have any plans of showing it to anyone else.

Some authors might be able to get away with pouring their tragedies onto the page and serving them up.  Most of us should probably avoid doing that, though.  If for no other reason, it’s going to be hard to edit and bring the quality to a serviceable level.

I have been able to tap into external tragedies, however.  A Clean Slate is born from my perceptions on the Patriot Act, and all of the craziness that we’ve endured since 9/11.  There’s more going on in that story, but underneath it all, I’m working through some of my thoughts and feelings about the price of freedom versus the price of security.

 

I don’t have any muses whispering in my ear, that I’m aware of.  Nor do I have any muses clubbing me over the head with a crowbar.  Ultimately, anything can become a story idea.  A writer simply has to decide which one they want to spend months or years refining.