Why do you write? And does it matter?

Medieval writing desk (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Well, why do you? If you are a writer, that is.

It’s an interesting question. Me, I’ve been writing for years, but it’s only the past five or six years that I’ve taken it seriously at all. After reading a lot of books, I started to think that some of the stories in my head could find an outlet in that way too. Let’s face it, with a lot of the stuff I was reading, I was sure I could do better.

Of course, that’s easier said than done, but the feedback I’ve had on some of my completed works (unpublished, that is) is that maybe I can. Do better, that is. If nothing else, it’s been encouraging, which is why I kept at it. I’m not someone who is so full of ideas that I would still be writing even if everyone hated my work. I need to believe that I can get somewhere with it, that I can have people I’ve never met read my words and be moved by them, in order to do it.

I know that this may be considered conceited, admitting that I don’t necessarily write for the love of it. The thing is, though, that I do, albeit in my own way. The way I see it is that I’ve already written the never-to-be-published stories. What I want to do now is take that next step, and write something that could be published, perhaps even by a publishing house. I have nothing against self-publishing and I may go down that path myself, but there’s a part of me that wants the external validation that getting an agent and a book deal provides.

Perhaps you write to be published, too. Perhaps you feel, as I do, that it’s time for you to try to take that next step. Or perhaps you write because you need to, because it’s your raison d’être, because if you didn’t you would go crazy. Perhaps you’re somewhere in the middle and you’re writing something that you think might end up in the wider world, but you’re not sure. Perhaps you’ve got a story you want to tell and you have no idea where it will take you.  Perhaps you’ve seen The Hunger Games and want to get in on that whole YA dystopian thing, or maybe pen the next erotica mega-hit. Perhaps you just like the feel of creating something and you have no intention of ever showing it to anyone.

The thing is, we are all different, and while our reasons for writing may sound the same on some levels, I suspect that once you delve right in, they are in fact all different too. Unique in their own way. We have different motivations, different expectations and different hopes and dreams about where our writing might take us. And I think we should celebrate this.

There are some people who judge others based on the reason they write. They turn up their noses at the idea of jumping on a bandwagon or writing for profit, saying that it should be for the love of the craft. Or they wonder aloud why anyone would waste their time on something that can never earn them a pay cheque. But I think this is self-defeating behaviour. We all have something in common, in that we all write. We all share a passion. And this is something that should be celebrated; that should be used as a reason to meet new people, not alienate them.

Why do you write? It’s probably a reason unique to you. And, really, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you do it at all.

 

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Interview: David Vernon, from Stringybark Stories

Image from http://www.stringybarkstories.net

Today I am very pleased to introduce David Vernon, judge and editor at Stringybark Stories. Stringybark hosts a number of short story competitions each year in an attempt to find the new voices of Australian writing. If you’ve ever been curious about how writing competitions are judged and what people are looking for, then this is for you.

Tell me about Stringybark Stories. What makes you different from other writing competitions?

I established Stringybark Stories in 2010 after I became disillusioned at what was available for Australian writers.  There seemed to be (and in fact still are) two tiers of competitions — the big ones with big prizes and a myriad of little ones with tiny prizes.  Both have problems.  The big ones are bureaucratic, monolithic and unfriendly.  Once you have submitted your story that’s it.  Unless you win something you never hear again from them — they rarely even acknowledge your submission.   The small  ones are bureaucratic in another way — they often require paper-based submission, cheques and once again you never hear anything until the results are announced — and when they are announced it is in the local newspaper and not even on a website.

The other issue is that even if you win a writing competition your story goes into limbo.  You may receive cash, a glow of satisfaction and then that is it.  With Stringybark we publish (in paperback and as an e-book) the winning entries and the highly commended stories.  Hence we support the author by saying categorically, “Your writing is good enough to be published.”

In short, I created Stringybark Stories to encourage short story writing by:

• being friendly and easy to interact with;
• being contemporary (we have a large website that is easy to navigate and all entries are accepted electronically);
• being transparent — all our judging criteria are clear, easy to understand and available and perhaps most importantly we offer the option of receiving feedback on every story entered.  Each entrant can see exactly what each judge thought of their story.  Continuing the transparency theme — we publish the names of all our judges and small biographies about them, so once again writers can see who is judging their work;
• having more than one judge (quite a few small competitions have only one judge — we have three and often four);
• helping writers to improve — we produce a free newsletter that comes out once or twice a month;
• rewarding those who write good stories by ensuring that their story is published, both electronically and in paper form; and
• celebrating writing success by giving the winning authors a profile page on our website.

Since our first competition in 2010 we have run eight competitions, judged 1127 entries, given $4,190 in prizes, published 273 short stories in 10 e-books and 9 paperbacks.

Our competition themes are set by writers and readers themselves by us seeking regular feedback from writers and that way we know we are meeting the needs of writers and readers.

What do you look for when you’re judging a short story?

We make it very clear on our website what we are looking for — all part of our transparency — but in short we want stories that match the genre of the competition, have a strong and internally consistent plot, good characterisation and deal with interesting subject matter.  In addition, competent punctuation and grammar don’t go astray either!  Everything people want in a novel, we want in a short story.   We do publish submission guidelines which should make it easier for both the submitter and the judge but it is constantly amazing how few people read them and that even fewer writers follow them.

How subjective do you find the process? Is there a way of keeping things as objective as possible or does it just come down to taste?

We do our very best to make a subjective assessment objective.  We mark each story out of fifty — ten marks for interest, ten for plot, ten for style, five for setting, five for characterisation, five for spelling/grammar and five for the judge to allocate on the basis of whether he or she thinks the story should be published.  Thus with four judges each story is marked out of 200.  We find that  by having multiple judges individual judging quirks tend to get ironed out.  We also produce a comprehensive guide for the judges to provide them with clear advice on how to rate elements of a story.  Having said that, it is clear that individual judging taste is very important.  If a judge doesn’t like a particular plot/theme/style then we find that the story tends to be marked down on all criteria.  But then this is no different to reader’s reactions to stories.  If you like something very much then most sins are forgiven.  ”What?  Poor punctuation?  No, just a typo.”  Conversely, if you don’t like something then there is little the author can do right.  Human nature, I’m afraid.

Why did you decided to focus on short stories and writing competitions?

Short stories are a wonderful form of literature for writers to practise their art.   In a short story, every word counts and so a word needs to mean just what you want it to mean — nothing more and nothing less.  Similarly, everything else needs to work — characterisation needs to be powerful, the plot clever and the style appropriate.  In longer forms of writing, it is less necessary to be precise and writing can become sloppy.  Dare I say it, but the latter Harry Potter books would be vastly better with being a little shorter.  However, by then JK Rowling was so successful that nobody would dare to suggest pruning of her words!

We focus on writing competitions because it is clear from the interviews we do with authors that writing competitions are an important way for them to receive feedback on their writing.  It is a relatively objective and independent way of finding if what you write is worthwhile.  Friends, relatives, lovers and children never quite manage to provide unbiased advice about the worth of a piece of writing.  They are simply too close to the author to be without any conflict of interest!  Therefore if our overall objective is to encourage Australian writers then supporting them through running a writing competition seems to make sense.

What advice would you have for any aspiring and novice authors out there?

Our author profile section on our website is full of writing wisdom.  However, there is one piece of advice that has always been with me.  The only way to learn to write, is to write.  Just do it!  And then do it again and again and again…

—————————–

Thanks David! Sage advice, and some really interesting comments about writing and the competition process. I’m not sure that it will help me win when I eventually get around to entering, but it’s certainly worth knowing. I’d also like to thank David for launching Stringybark, and commend him for the policy of transparency in the competitions.

If you would like to know more about David then please either visit his website or the Stringybark Short Story Awards. If you’re an Australian writer, I strongly advise you check out the different competitions. Currently they are looking for flash fiction stories, due in about seven weeks time, so if you want to try your hand at that then by all means do so. I’m even considering putting a story together myself!

The Beautiful Blogger Award!

Wow. I’ve been nominated for the Beautiful Blogger Award!! An ENORMOUS thank you to Emi from Four Leaves for the nomination. Honestly, I’m so touched.  :) *hugs*

As a result, I’ve got a bit of a change in theme today. No writing tips or experiences, just sharing the blogging love. Here’s what it’s all about. The Beautiful Blogger Award is for creativity, originality, and contribution to the blogging community.

The guidelines are to list seven random facts about yourself; post a link to the blog of the person who nominated you (done that!!); link to seven other bloggers who are deserving of the award; and let those bloggers know that you’ve nominated them. Pretty simple, right? So here goes.  :)

Seven random facts about me:

1. I’m right handed in everything I do, except playing (ice) hockey. I hold a hockey stick left handed for some reason; it feels more comfortable that way. My husband is right handed too, but the kids (even the baby) are left-handed. Not sure where that came from!
2. I changed my surname legally when I was sixteen years old. There was no family split or crisis or anything; I just wanted a different name.
3. I was also sixteen when I finished school – and I don’t mean left, but finished year 12. I then took a year off to do a student exchange because I figured sixteen was just a little bit young to start university.
4. My favourite movie is Kenneth Branagh‘s version of Henry V, though the Lord of the Rings movies are a close second. I’ve read The Lord of the Rings in its entirety every year since I was eighteen.
5. I don’t wear make-up, or do my hair in any special way beyond brushing it. The face-paint and hair dryer come out for weddings, funerals and job interviews. And that’s it.
6. At twenty-one I had my jaw broken and re-set in order to correct a chronic and severe overbite. I now only have about 40% feeling in my chin due to the severing of a nerve, but at least I have a chin.
7. I learned to play the piano as a child, and apparently got quite good, but the fact that I am absolutely tone deaf meant that I lost interest when I couldn’t tell when I was doing something wrong.

Right. Did that bore the pants off you? It’s amazing how hard it can be to think of seven random things about yourself that others might find even vaguely interesting.

Now for my seven nominations. I admit I initially struggled to find seven, mostly because many of my initial thoughts had already been nominated. I have, however, come up with some absolute beauties that I hope you check out. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Confessions of a Stuffed Olive, by Holly Kench. Holly did my guest post last Friday so this might seem like just additional promotion, but you really must check out her blog. I follow a lot of people, but she’s one of the few that I read every single time.
2. Colleen Moore. Another writer working on a first novel, I can really relate to her experiences and struggles – and she puts them so well!
3. Amelia Curzon. Not only does she have some great insights on the writing process, but her guest posts are amazing. (Not including mine, of course. That would just be conceited.)
4. The Monster’s Ink, by Alyson Miers. Social commentary with bite, this is a great read, even if you’re not American.
5. Anne Chaconas. I can’t help but just agree with her!
6. Justin O’Leary at Write21. An amazing resource for writers. My only complaint is that he doesn’t post often enough.
7. Ingrid Gascoigne at Destination: denouement. Can I just say …  I can relate!!

So there are my Beautiful Bloggers. All that’s left for me to to is tell them they’ve been nominated …. which I will get to just as soon as I’ve taken the baby to his swimming lesson.  Thanks again to Emi for the nomination, and next week I’ll return to normal scheduling.  :)

Guest post: Why Writers should Blog, by Holly Kench

Why Writers Should Blog

Image of me blogging was created by today’s guest poster, Holly Kench

When I first decided to start writing seriously, I desperately sought advice wherever I could get it. Everyone I spoke to made a lot of good suggestions: write every day, write what you’re passionate about, find your niche, create a writing routine, enjoy your writing, etc. Yet, there was one recommendation that I hadn’t expected and that kept popping up:

Write a blog.

A what? I would ask, scratching my technologically malnourished brain. At the time, the only blog I frequented was that of Ricky Gervais, and I remained unconvinced that ‘blog’ could actually be a real word.

However, it wasn’t long before I was following many MANY blogs and writing my own. I haven’t looked back since.

But just why is blogging such a positive endeavour for writers?

Let’s start with the basic reasons that blogging is beneficial for writers. The most essential of these would have to be in creating a home for yourself on the net. People need to be able to look you up online; just as you need a place to direct readers. In this increasingly virtual world (yes, it’s a cliché because it’s true), home is where the link is. For writers, this is your blog. It’s your online centre, and from your blog you can direct readers to your other social media (ie. Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads), to other relevant sites, and, most importantly, to where they can read/purchase your work.

Your blog is so much more than a Yellow Pages entry, though. It’s also a place where you can advertise your writing skills and generate an audience. You can promote yourself as an author, as well as specifically promoting your available work. Even more exciting, you can write to an interactive audience. This is a luxury that the traditional world of books doesn’t have. By writing a blog you become part of a developing community in which readers can respond and contribute to texts directly. On a blog, writers and readers communicate, discuss and consider writing as part of an ongoing conversation. I find the possibilities of this terribly exciting.

In terms of your writing itself, blogging is also a wonderful exercise. Blogging gives you the opportunity to write without restraint. You can write for the joy of it, at those times when you know your brain will burst if you don’t get those words down, or when you really need to write out problems and explore questions about your primary writing. And you have a waiting audience ready to read and contribute to your thoughts. Of course, the topic of your blog affects this to a certain extent – though I don’t really let that bother me too much. While my blog mostly consists of humorous short stories, I’ve discovered that my readers are more than willing to read and comment on my concerns about fiction and pop culture, and, for that matter, anything else I feel like blogging about at the time.

There’s a freedom in blogging that you don’t always experience from other types of writing. You don’t have to prove anything to a publisher or agent when you’re blogging. All you have to do is write for you and your wonderful followers, who are just waiting to give you their two cents worth (and that’s worth so much more).

——————–

Thanks Holly! If you’d like to know more about this week’s guest blogger, she identifies herself as a Tasmanian (Australian) writer and feminist, with a classics degree and a fear of spiders.  She enjoys writing fantasy and humour for adults, as well as young adult and children’s fiction, and is currently writing her first novel, a young adult paranormal fantasy. Oh yeah, and she also likes writing stories about herself and drawing pictures of herself as a stuffed olive. To see more of her work, you can check out her website.

Holly as a stuffed olive

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The long and winding road

Winding road (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the weekend, I had an email from a writing buddy.  One of a number of people I met on another website under another name, she is part of a small group who have decided to hold their own writing contest. The idea is to write as many chapters as possible, in the month from 7 May to 7 June. No new projects, just WIPs, are eligible, as the idea is to get a move on with things we have already started. Each participant would offer some kind of prize to the winner, and encouragement of fellow competitors is mandatory. Would I, she asked, be interested?

Would I what! With the school holidays recently I’ve dropped back my writing output of late, though that was remedied a little by the rush of inspiration (and frantic scribbling) I had last week.  The only trouble was, I wasn’t sure I would be able to meet their criteria. The thing is, you see, that I don’t write in chapters.

Actually, I don’t write in order at all. Well, sure, for short stories (up to 7000 or so words) I do, but anything longer than that I’m all over the shop. I write scenes as they occur to me, then put them in order for the story I have vaguely in the back of my mind, and then fill in the blanks. Sure, this means that a lot of what I write eventually gets scrapped, as many scenes either turn out differently than I originally envisioned them, or end up not being included at all, but it’s the way my mind words. Key events first, filler later.

The result of this is that I usually have to write the whole novel, and then split it into chapters. There are some natural chapter breaks, of course, but if I want any consistency of chapter length then I occasionally have to move scenes around in order to get them at the end of the chapter. (And I like consistent chapter lengths. One of my foibles, I think.)

I know that I’m not alone in this – I’m told that Stephen King, no less, writes in much the same way – but I also know that there are a lot of writers who start at the beginning and go right through to the end. To me, this is a completely alien way of writing, but I can’t help but admire it. I know that some of these people are “pantsers”, who don’t know where their story will end up until they get there, but others have planned so meticulously that they can tell you exactly what will happen in any given chapter, and could even write it if you asked them to, even if they’re nowhere near that in the story as yet. The sheer weight of planning involved in that makes my head spin.

I’ve told myself that one day, I’ll try to write a story that way. I’ll fill notebooks not with actual scenes, but notes about scenes, what they’ll involve, with meticulous details about story order. I’m not sure that I’ll do a very good job at it, but I want to see what it’s like.

In the meantime, though, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. It’s worked for me so far, and it’s the way I feel most comfortable as a writer. And the writing competition my friend suggested? Well, I’ve come up with a compromise. I’ll nominate a set number of words per chapter – say 2500 – and I’ll write as many blocks of 2500 words as I can. It’s better than nothing, right?

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On being a “writer”

There are a lot of articles and quotes online about what it is to be a writer. There are those who say you can’t be an aspiring writer – you are either one or you are not. There are those who say you have to tell the world you are a writer, otherwise it is merely a hobby and not a serious pursuit. And there are those who claim they know all the ins and outs of what it is to write.

I am none of these, though I do see the logic in the aspiring writer thing. Maybe people should call themselves aspiring authors instead. After all, anyone can write, but to finish a book, to have it in print or online in Amazon – that’s something else. But this is by the by. I have looked at all these views, and sifted through them, and come to my own conclusion: you are a writer if you believe you are.

I’m going to take myself as an example, because who else do I know as well? I don’t tell many people that I write. Most of my friends have no idea, and I certainly haven’t broadcast it among those I know in real life. (Hence the low numbers on my Facebook page.) There is a reason for this, but I won’t go into that right now. Suffice to say that by the time my novel has gone through a couple of betas I want to have a look at it, I’ll start spreading the word. I have stories published online under another name that only my husband knows about, despite the fact that within their online communities they are quite popular. But, for me, that has been a very personal part of my life, a private outlet for telling stories that I had in me.

However, I do see myself as a writer. I am taking this current novel very seriously and I do intend to publish it when the time comes, whether traditionally or independently. (I prefer the idea of traditional publishing, but am very aware that it’s very hard to break into. But again, that’s another issue for another day.) The fact that very few of my inner circle know about it is irrelevant to my dedication to the project. I am just as serious about trying to get a bit of an online profile before the novel is finished, and am trying to get involved in some new communities to boost my name awareness. In short, even if I’m being furtive in real life, I want to give myself the best possible chance of getting people in the wider world to read my book.

Does my reluctance to talk about it to my real life friends make me any less of a writer? I think not. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed about it and I don’t doubt they will support me, I just want to have the finished (albeit perhaps unedited) manuscript in my hand before I share this part of my life. According to some pundits, this means I’m not taking it seriously. To me, though, I’m taking the same steps. I’m just taking them in a different order from other people.

Image by Hector Gomez

Restructuring – the dreaded “R” word

Right. First things first. You may notice  that my blog has a couple of new tabs at the top – one covering mentions and one listing publishing credits. These have both appeared since my last blog entry and I would like to send a huge thank-you to the people responsible for it: Rachel Kovacs, who linked to last week’s entry in her webzine Writer, and Maria Kelly aka the Were-Traveler, who published my flash fiction No Regrets in the latest edition. Wow. I really feel like I’m getting somewhere in this writing thing now!

That said (and please excuse my self-glorification but hey, you have to take everything that comes your way, right?), I am now going to get back to the point. Last week I went to my first writing-related conference.  While much of it wasn’t directly relevant to me, it was a really useful exercise in getting to know other writers in my area, and hearing about how other people approach their writing.  Coming out of this conference, I stood in the rain at the bus stop and had an epiphany.

I am going to restructure my novel.

I don’t mean anything small here. I mean, the whole thing is going to need a rewrite. I’m not even going to edit my main manuscript; I’m going to start a new one and begin from there.  The bits from the old one that I can use – which will be a lot of it, but much will be presented in a different way – will be copied from the old document and pasted into the new one, rather than me trying to navigate around what’s already there.

Believe me, the decision to do this did not come lightly.  However, I’ve been thinking about how to streamline my plot – some people who have read some of my earlier works might know that I have a tendency to tell the whole story when in reality snippets would do just as well – and give it a much shorter timeline. That is, instead of telling a story covering twenty years, it’s now going to cover four or five years and involve some flashbacks and the like to cover the initial bit that’s now being cut out. This means it will look very different from the original story I planned when this idea came to me two years ago, but it also means that it’s going to be shorter, better structured and have more of a punch to it.

In other words, it will be a better novel.

Now, I’m just going to ignore the fact that it may feel like I’m giving one of my children plastic surgery, take a deep breath, and jump in the deep end of the restructuring process. Wish me luck!