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Books on the commute
Reader: mid-thirties woman typical of a commuter from my village. The sort of woman you would assume read Mills & Boon, if you stick to stereotypes.
Book: Fool Me Once - Harlem Former
“Special ops pilot Maya, home from the war, sees an unthinkable image captured by her nanny cam while she is at work: her two-year-old daughter playing with Maya’s husband, Joe–who had been brutally murdered two weeks earlier.”
Writers Block: Help with the age old problem.
I have been on the internet creative writing/book art scene for a long time, mostly as an observer. I’ve seen a lot of writing from a lot of people, and with books and writing blogs like mine you see a lot of the same things. Today we’re going to discuss ‘writers block’ and the idea of creating a list of solutions. You see a lot of “100 ways to cure writers block”, “50 things to do if you have writers block” etc. etc. I don’t pretend to be a bestselling author but I’m pretty good and getting stuck and unstuck. In short, here’s my list.
1) Do you really have writers block?
What is it? It is defined by the OED as thus: “The condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing”. There is a problem with this in that many people misdiagnose writers block when really there condition is a simple case of not thinking about what they’re writing. This can result in a mess of words splattered across a page, but as some of us will know, some writers seem to make money from this.
If you write purely for pleasure, no boundaries, no interest in publishing, or a career in writing, just a hobby, skip to 4.
2) Don’t write sporadically.
Don’t think “I can’t think of something to write about, so I’ll
just write anything”. No. Stop. You have forgotten that writing is an art, and
the aim is to create something you consider beautiful, whatever that may be.
Unless you find true form in disorganised mess (which I’m sure some will) don’t
splatter paint words all over the canvas page.
3) Think about what you’re writing in detail.
Take time to form your ideas; minutes, hours, days, weeks, years. You can write some of this down to make sure you don’t forget anything, but don’t think of the first idea that comes to you and run with it. When you follow your theoretical story line along later, you may just find you’ll have messed up somewhere because you didn’t take the time to think.
4) Don’t procrastinate with gimmicky inspirational techniques.
Ditch the “take a walk in the park in a midsummer’s afternoon” or “write a list of things that you think are really, really pretty”, they’re a waste of time. If you’re writing, it should be because of something has inspired you to do so. Always look for inspiration, don’t take time out for it. Learn to do it all the time.
5) Make sure you’re writing for the correct reasons.
Don’t write to make money, if you do, you’re doing it wrong, even if you want to make money from it. Don’t write to impress people or for your “image”, people will hate you for it.
6) Only write for pleasure.
It’s kind of the point. And don’t write for the pleasure of others, if you do you will lose your story in what other people want.
“With the novel it is the same thing. Popular authority and the recognition of popular authority are fatal. … A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent.” – Oscar Wilde
7) Don’t force it.
I’m going to reinforce my point in 2, don’t just write anything and in don’t sit down and force yourself to write. Don’t lock yourself in a room and wait till you bash the keys so you can do something else, it won’t work out well.
8) Read. A lot.
This is the true answer to your problems. If you take one thing away from this let it be this: Reading makes you a better writer. Don’t be frightened of imitating someone else’s style either. If I could write like Shakespeare and pull it off, I would. Artists have had successful and meaningful careers having their vision made from bits and pieces of their predecessors and those they admire.
If you’re not writing about characters skip to 11.
9) Kill characters for a reason.
Please for the love of god DO NOT kill a character off for a meaningless plot point to bounce off. If readers have no emotional investment and they die to keep them interested, they will get bored. If readers do have an emotional investment but the character dies for no direct reason other than “Oh my god he died nooo…” then don’t do it. Everyone paying attention hates it.
10) Every character should be complex.
If you have a character that has no use other than to buff out the story like an extra in a film then by all means avoid any sort of literary fluffing for the sake of your word count. If the character does have a use or they are in fact a main character remember that they should be fleshed out, If they aren’t you won’t know what they’ll do next. People are complicated, characters should be.
11) Don’t edit till you edit.
Just. Wait. You can go back later.
12) Never write about writing.
Please, for the sake of the art. It’s just as bad as it ending in a dream.
13) Never write for a destination.
Don’t write some boring preamble in order to get to the “interesting bit” all of it should be interesting. See point 3.
So there it is. If you’re looking to seriously cure yourself of writers block, try this out. Let me know if it worked.
J
Possible Vintage Book Giveaway!
Like or reblog (or both if you’re a special super follower) if you would be interested in a beautiful vintage book giveaway when I hit my next big follower count?!
The best moments in reading…
“The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys
Gross Indecency
On the 25th of may 1895 Oscar Wilde, a novelist and play-write was sentenced to 2 years hard labor due to charges of “gross indecency” or what is known more properly today as homosexuality. this is my monologue of Wilde in his cell. enjoy.
I have woken from a languid dream… of malcontent… in which humanity, whom I rely so strongly upon for amazement, inspiration and disgust, has torn my very obviated, but mindful tendencies from the very rhythm and tone of my soul.
The soul?…
I write about it, seek out and linguify the very depths and corners… of its tremulous and tenuous outstretches and yet one cannot for a miniscule perplexing, dumbfounding exquisite moment… define it. And yet here I sit in the far reaches of guttered society with a chilling and aching cemented feel in my bones and a tortuous thundering hunger in my stomach.
But some artist of fashionable and political standing, must simply have interpreted the topic of which I speak, and should surely come forward! AND REBUTTLE MY MOST INDECENT CLAIM!
For what reason… pray tell me… for what REASON! Must I be kept under rusty lock and key, day and night ‘til my soul does rot in its caged nightmarish convulsion? … For what reason?
I will subtly tend to my own soul… it seems of no value to the harsh environment of finer standings and so must be placed by the clean and sinless hands of judgemental peers, persons and judiciaries. HA!
Politics and law as a whole, are run by those who are undeserving to be given power… but this however is equitably and justifiably why they govern and manage. Because they are most often falsely labelled, the right among us, the true among us. Even though we all know this to be an irrevocable lie, we still accept it, and why? Because of politics itself. Because of society’s blinding hatred for the other race, creed, culture or’ savageness’, which is now the highly used term for something other than the user.
Though, an artist must not delve into politics in fear one will lose one’s soul, feelings and Art, and become evidently what is without these things. A politician.
You may laugh all you like, but it is the true reason for my imprisonment. I have not dwindled even slightly upon the mode of my transgression. I am not proud of it, why should any man be in such a world… but I do not hate it, I shan’t reject or repel it as many in my life now have… though nor shall I embrace it, but simply bestow upon it the understanding that so many seem to omit from their lives.
I am as indecent as the movement of spring; I went where Mother Nature intended me to go. I did not struggle or push or contemplate or wonder… I simply knew. And I was criticised and crucified for it. I am not afraid or shamed to say that I am sour about it. To me it as unfair as the lack of snow in the summer nights and I shall always wish for it to happen… and yet it is forbidden. As forbidden as snow on a golden and beautifully warm day by Mother Nature or God.
People have become god. Or people were always god. One might say that was blasphemous, but it is an observation. Or is it a blasphemous observation? Such things are frequently discussed in the increasingly dark and descendent corners of smoky science cabinet. Whispers of a silent and creative, yet banished speech which, I am sure, one day, will shine through. It is as easy and as painful in a society akin to ours to take a man’s beliefs as it is his life.
But the soul…
The soul is an entity that cannot be tampered, or jammed, or forcibly altered. It is what it is, a core possession of us all and what we all change and spice with our surroundings and experiences.
My current position however is an experience which torments and poisons the core of it… cools it from the very touch of the iron bars around me. But in the end it cannot, and will not be contained for I do not run from the named shadows of my past, as I do not fear it!
But I am now chained to it, whether it through the retracted touch of another man, or the distanced glare of a fairer woman than I.
I am Oscar Wilde. A convicted criminal, charged for a crime about which he knows nothing. Tortured by the repulsion of once equal fellows, murdered by the hierarchy. And desecrated by his own art…
Art is nothing but the refracted image of one’s soul. And mine is banished, burnt, tainted and charred in the ashes of its defeat.
I formally refuse the idea that a book is just a book.
Paper Towns
As a Northern English boy/man about the same age as Q and Margo i find myself consistently assuring myself that Americans are weird and we are very different.
Dorian gray (Taken with instagram)
My Book List (30)
Dracula
King Lear
The wife of bath
Tis pity she’s a whore
The Etymologicon
Great expectations
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Agatha Christie
The Odyssey
A game of thrones x 3
Tennyson’s works
Death of kings
16. The Ode less Travelled
17. Byron’s poetical works
18. How to win friends and influence people
19. Emma
20. Pride and Prejudice
21. Crime and punishment
22. David Copperfield
23. Inheritance
24. Lord of the rings
25. The Silmarillion
26. Reading like a writer
27. The poetical works of Wordsworth
28. Hamlet
29. Le Misreables
30. The Count of Monte Cristo
Some of these books/plays/poetry i have read already and want to read again and some i haven't but this will be my 2013 journey of books, onward unto the breach!!!