Toward the end of 2009, I resolved to make Wednesdays my submission days. I had done little submission throughout the year and that needed to change if I wanted to move forward. Wednesday, January 6th was my first opportunity of the new year to put my plan in motion.

As a first step I decided to reevaluate my submission process to-date and straighten out what was not working. Here were the previous shortcomings. 

The problem: Discipline
Submission is no fun. It is akin to preparing resumes, a job in itself. Each employer (publication or agent) asks for different formatting (guidelines). They have specific contact people (submission emails). And each is looking for the just the right employee to fit their needs (story). Its a lot of thankless work. One may not find out the result of his work for months. In some cases he may never find out. Wouldn't one rather write?

The solution: Just do it.
Simply put, submission is a necessary evil. It's an unavoidable task if one wants to get published. No sense having my finished works lying around collecting dust. There are no other options.

Despite there being a good deal of transferring info into the new format, what I ended up with was something far more useful to me given the way I think.

And I addressed the process I had found so frustrating last year. Instead of finding one publication then putting together all my materials for it, I took the advice of other writers. They suggested I take one submission day and either only gather publisher/agent info or only submit to publications/agents for which I had info. Don't try to combine the two tasks on the same day. They're different tasks and are best separated. Shifting gears over and over slows progress.

By the end of my Jan 6th session, I gave into temptation and submitted to a publication instead of only gathering company info. But the publication seemed perfect for a certain story I had been sitting on, so I made an exception. In this case, the publication's submission guidelines were particularly lax and that translated into a submission that didn't require much outside of sending the short story. If the same situation arises again, I'll probably do the same thing since there was little shifting gears necessary.

I'm already confident my new approach is the correct one because, unlike every moment I thought about it in 2009, I am not dreading my next submission date in four days.

I've already covered my Wednesday commitment to submit. Doing so feels good. Doing so also leaves me wondering what else I can do to make 2010 a better writing year. The first question is what improvements need to be made in my writing career.

1. Write faster.
   Run through the first draft. Make changes to subsequent drafts more efficiently.
2. Improve my writing-related organization.
   Set aside a time for writing. Presently, I write a good bit but the time is scattered throughout the day.
3. Submit more.
   I basically don't submit so the bar is low. My goal is to improve on the amount of submission I was supposed to be doing. I suppose, in large part, that goes back to #2: organization.
4. Read more quality fiction that will improve my own work.
   To be clear, I'm not talking about reading something and ripping it off substantively or stylistically. I'm talking about allowing the influence of well-crafted words to change my writing for the better.
5. Read more about the craft of writing and the writing lifestyle.
   One can never hear the same good advice too many times. And in the course of reading that same advice, one regularly stumbles onto one of three things:
   1. The same advice is phrased in such a way you haven't heard before, allowing it to hit home
   2. The same advice finally hits you at the right time in your writing evolution
   3. You might actually pick up something new, unlikely as that may seem to more seasoned writers.
6. Attend more writing-related events.
   There are appearances, conferences, seminars, etc., all of which reinvigorate a writer's occasionally-flagging flame. There are handshakes to be shared and opportunities to be jumped on. There are new lessons to be learned. I have done little of this in my career so far and that must be improved upon.
7. Improve my writing space.
   I nearly wrote a posting on this one alone, but decided to include all the above items because my current inefficiency doesn't come down to my work space alone. That said, this could be my biggest obstacle. I need comfort and quiet without distraction. I am committed to read more about how to make that happen then...make that happen.

So here is my plan. Do all those things.

Okay, it's not a plan, but there is something to be said for getting it all out there in black and white. Admitting we have a problem is the first step to making change, right?

So, do the same! Make a list of all the ways you can improve upon your writing in 2010. Even if you improve in one category (and don't fall back in another) that's an improvement.

Ring image courtesy of CrazyAboutCrafting

I have had a particularly difficult time writing since starting my detailed outline of my current novel in the works. This current difficulty is surprising in that the story itself is pretty much laid out for me. All that is left is the writing. I've pondered this for days, wondering what is the slow-down.

I considered if I've run out of passion for writing. While not wanting to write can sound like "not wanting to write," I knew in my soul writing is here to stay, that it is something deep within my genes. There's no getting rid of it.

I considered my ADD or my crippling lack of organizational skill was too severe to overcome, that I would be doomed never to complete a long or in any way complicated work. I looked at my detailed outline and knew that couldn't be the case. It was/is not perfect, but it's perfect enough to allow me to write without a significant risk of cornering myself with a plot hole.

I considered I may lack the maturity to sit my butt down and do the hard work. This is probably a contributing factor, something which needs to be addressed sooner than later. But as the main reason, it lacked legs. I sit for hours and work on websites, a task that, over time, has given me less satisfaction but that I do well. I also recdntly completed P90X, that maniacal exercise challenge/program from the infomercials, on my first attempt. So I have discipline. Something else is at work.

Ashamedly possessing what I've described as a "mystical bone," I took something akin to a spirit walk to look at how I was thinking about the story itself. I often wake up in the middle of the night and think or work for an hour. In this time, my creativity seems closer to the surface. Sometimes I'll come up with a solution to a design problem or I'll be "given" the solution to a POV issue that's been bugging me for days. I might realize how to handle a parenting issue. Anything. But just as often, I'll be able to see a problem that I didn't realize was there in the first place. The answer to my writing difficulty was "revealed" to me in this way.

Days and days have gone by with my writing at a constipated pace. I've written the beginning of the story five or six times, doubting the direction of these first steps each time, hearing the voices of my critique partners in my ears. Beckie would say this or Joe would ask that. Sanford would urge me to start more aggressively.

Then it hit me. I was no longer writing the story of my heart from my heart. I was auditioning every word for the people who would see it in a couple weeks. Like asking permission to take each step, it was taking me forever to get across the room or, in this case, get the story written.

One can't write effectively with eyes over his shoulder or with the voices of his audience in his head. Doing so is not joyful writing and if one writes without joy he may as well take out the trash or wash the dog.

An article in the most recent issue of Writers Digest mentioned that critique groups can sometimes stifle a writer's creativity by building in him the urge to write for those people, knowing what each of his peers picks up on.

Guilty. 

(Footnote: The fact that there is a downside to critique groups -- or anything related to writing, for that matter -- doesn't mean that one should exclude them from one's consideration, only that one should know and avoid that specific downside. One wouldn't stay home just because there is a potentially car-ruining pothole on the way to work; one would drive around it.)

As soon as I realized that was what I was doing, the desire to write returned as if it were Granola and I just got found starving in the forest. 

So my advice at this point is this. Write for yourself. You guessed it. That means keep your critique group out of it. Keep your spouse and your kids out of it. Keep your mom out of it. Keep your 5th grade English teacher out of it. Keep the invisible eyes of your present or potential audience out of it.

Writing for yourself doesn't mean you need to be selfish or stupid. You still need to integrate your writing schedule with family and work. And you still need to avoid overtly stupid writing errors if you have an eye on getting published. What writing for yourself means to me is keep the child in you who always loved writing interested in the writing.

When you sat in your room as a teen, writing the story you HAD to write, you never thought about how women's groups in Pennsylvania might accept your lead character's misogynistic tendencies, right? Well, don't set out to intentionally offend anyone, but also don't set out to appease anyone for the sake of safety or sales. I'd bet you didn't try to write the story perfectly; it was the story that mattered most, not the perfection of every line. If you're reading this, you probably want to get published and that's fine, but you can't afford to let that slow or soften your work, especially in the early drafts.

Write the story you had in mind the way you envisioned it. If you're involved in a good critique situation, you'll be able to take what you need and won't offend anyone by leaving what you don't need behind. They'll let you know if you've gone unmarketably too far. They'll also let you know if something doesn't make sense. Hopefully, they'll let you know when you're probably worrying about nothing too.

But, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter who says what. If you knew today you'd never get published, would you really stop writing? Probably not. So you must embrace writing for yourself and trust the craft will improve on its own.

As I have mentioned before, I am writing my long-time-bubbling-in-the-background novel by using an in-depth plot outline before beginning the real writing. The process has been surprising in a few ways. Below, I describe a what a detailed outline is for me and how it can benefit one's writing as well as ways in which it is not a perfect tool. 

So what is a detailed outline?
When I began outlining, I wasn't sure to what degree of detail I needed to go but after working on it a while I hit on a decent analogy. Write in the same way you would describe the story to someone if you were sitting on a couch with them. Don't leave out any important details but instead of telling the story, you're interested in telling them about the story with an aim to keep their interest. This way, you've got a good gauge of how long to linger at different points in the story and when you need to step up the pace.  

Detailed outlining is -- or maybe can be -- a slow process.
When I began outlining, I would say I had a decent idea of how the story was going to go; however, once I got in to the outlining, I realized there were -- or would have been -- many sections that would have stopped me in my tracks. Little logic errors here and there or places where I needed to decide which of two characters should die first or, in fact, whether one of the characters in question should die at all. Solving these problems in the outline proved to require no less time that they would have during the writing, but solving them at this early stage did not require stopping my writing momentum.

Detailed outlining helps someone like me.
I've made no secret about my easy distractibility. Whereas the seat-of-you-pantsers -- which always sounds a little too Nazi tank squadron for my liking -- seems somehow to avoid or correct plot holes as they occur, I am glaringly unable to do so. In the beginning when I first began serious writing, I tried many different ways of approaching the craft in an attempt to find the process that worked for me. I found the most successful work environment: coffee house that isn't freezing or McDonald's-ish or with sub-par coffee (are you listening Starbucks?). I found the writing tools that work best for me: MacBook Pro using Pages, noise canceling earbuds, Monroe Products' "So" Chord or other non-vocal ambient music. I found that, for whatever reason, I write better when dressed for work rather than sweats and tee. I work better in the ridiculously early morning or immediately following a nap. It turns out I MUST have an outline of the entire story (or at least for an entire major section) in order to keep everything in line or I'll chase a great idea into an unworkable corner every time. 

Detailed outlining has most of the qualities of writing the actual story.
I find that, as I work through the outline, the characters come alive in nearly the same way as the do in the actual writing. That came as the biggest surprise of all. I would have guessed the outline to be cold and distant, but i caught myself thinking "my character wouldn't do/say that" many times and, in those instances, it was comforting to know the fix could not only be quick but I could just note a suggestion as to the change. I didn't need to take time to nail down the exact wording. I found this part of outlining similar to a playwrite's staging notes: "Chetan backs away, stumbling back in his terror at..." And in the event a whole section does go off track, it's way easier to redirect/correct an entire chapter than the long-form story.

Detailed outlining keeps the story moving.
Somewhat akin to guiding oneself away from tempting tangents, outlining in this way moves the story from one gripping moment to the next. When all one has are the basic events and the important items to remember, one tends not to ruminate unnecessarily in any one place for too long.

Detailed writing -- I've been assured -- makes the actual writing easier. 
Chris Roberson (who can be see here doing childish cartwheels) encouraged me to consider detailed outlining when he spoke to the San Antonio Writers Guild in mid-2009. In that talk, he said the main benefit of outlining, past the reasons I've already mentioned above, was that once the actual writing begins, one cruises. He said that it is not unusual to pop out 20 pages -- good pages -- in a day because all the questions are answered. The path is cleared, so all one has to do is walk it, or in this case, run it. And to confuse things with another layer, the benefit of writing at that pace is the voice remains more consistent throughout the work, something which which a beginning writer may struggle. Too often, I have taken too long on a story. When I've finished and read it back, the writer at the beginning of the work is clearly in one state of mind or skill level and in a different place by the end. Readers enjoy experiencing change in a character through a story, but I'm pretty sure they don't look for or appreciate that same change in the writer.

Possible pitfalls of detailed outlining.
It's difficult to do more than guess at the possible pitfalls of working this way since I haven't done much actual writing based on the outline work, but I know one element that doesn't fit well into the outline is setting and sensation. Since the outline works exclusively with gripping events and the bridges between them, only the parts of setting that are key to those events being possible are included. A good idea may be to note at the top of each outline "Don't forget to paint a picture," and "Remember the five senses;" otherwise, the writing may stick too literally to the events, making the story sound cold and distant. I'll have to remember to turn the heat on when I start writing.

The verdict.
I wouldn't want to work any other way when it comes to longer works. I can certainly see a place for seat-of-my-pants at some point. Maybe detailed outlining will teach me enough about what does and doesn't work in plots so that someday I can just wing it. That just isn't possible now. I almost wrote that for shorter works, a detailed outline may be unnecessary, but I think one may be even more necessary given the less forgiving nature of short works compared to long. So let me say, for works under 1000 words one probably doesn't need an outline. For anything else, please give it a shot.

Detailed patterns in line drawings by Pedro Lucena courtesty of Gentle Pure Space: Graphic design, art, and other creative inspiration.

First Drafts Are Worthless

First drafts of any work are bad. You will be terribly disappointed if you show your first draft to your classmates, teacher, wife, friends. They may smile and say nice things, but that doesn't prove me wrong; it only proves that you have nice friends. Get over it. Like unicorns, finished first drafts only except in fantasy. But unlike unicorns, first drafts should be ugly, messy, scattered things. To think otherwise is a waste of time and energy. But that is not to say first drafts are in any way useless.

First Drafts Are Not Useless

Creating First Drafts

Yesterday (Saturday) I read the short article, "[Exercise Your Pen] New Beginnings" in the September issue of Writers Digest, an excerpt from B. J. Hollars's You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside the Story. In it, Hollars suggests writing 10 to 20 first sentences of stories only. The exercise is a break icebreaker for the artist combatting writers block and had a number of benefits.

Among these is the ability to not be so serious for a change. With the directive NOT to consider the 20 or more pages that might follow any of these lines, the author is allowed to devote his full attention to that one opener itself. That concentration focuses the mind on creating the very most enticing hook for a story.

Once one has begun writing creating the sentences, the directive not to continue with the story idea transforms from a blessing to irksome to torturous.

I created opening sentences for the stories I had done some work on already but hadn't quite developed, then I moved onto the brief notes from a small notebook I keep with me at all times. When I was finished I had closer to 30 opening sentences and I had revealed another benefit of the exercise.

Beyond good practice crafting opening sentences and adding a twist and some freedom to a writing session, I now have a quick go-to sheet I can use the next time I need to start a new story. Not only that, but developing the story ideas from the tiny notebook reminded me of why I had written each of the notes. Now there's a far slimmer a chance I'll let them fester inside, never to be developed into the story i once knew could be there.

I'm not talking about my ripped stomach or a peach when I say "hard in the middle". I don't have either at the moment, a fact which causes me great sadness. I love peaches and I'm sure my wife would love my having a ripped stomach.

No. I'm talking about a phenomenon that I've experienced in my art career including painting, graphic and web design, songwriting and fiction writing: that of the difficulty that shows up in the middle of any artistic process.

No matter how inspired our idea, no matter how energetic the start, no matter how tight the pre-planning, the middle twists around, tempts one to the outside edge where things get unfocused and thin. The middle is where the shapelessness of tedium allows the mind to wander. The middle is where certainty and new intelligence -- what has revealed itself to us in the process of producing art -- overlap and turn into what seems at the time a hopeless mud.

Push through and have faith in the original idea. Your abilities will rewarded with a finished work worth the effort. Once you've witnessed this magic for yourself, you'll have a success in your pocket on which to build more and more successes. For some, one time will be enough to get him over future humps; for others, many victories will have to be won before he can push past the middle point on his own.

This push is similar to running headlong into a forest with the goal of making it out alive on the other side. You enter thinking you'll go straight in, reach halfway and go straight back out. But once you're in you realize trees are in the way, there's an impassible cliff or a swift river. You have to change your plan. You might even have to rethink your path to the point you feel you're so far off track you'll never complete the trip. But the writing process is complex terrain. You'll find you've overestimated the obstacle or it will turn out the long backtrack takes you to a subplot you hadn't planned. That middle point wasn't a problem. As cliche as it sounds, it was an opportunity. More importantly, it was necessary.

The fact that there's not always a gun to your head when it comes to writing makes a middle push more difficult because, when its all said and done, one doesn't HAVE to get to a finishing point. However, a writing life is a craft. You only succeed if you practice the whole game, not only the beginning of the game until you tire or start losing. Games can be won from behind; stories can be completed despite difficulty.

Saying this doesn't offer the writer much specific advice. What specifically does one do faced with the sticky middle? My advice risks sounding boring but again, rule number one holds true: Keep writing. Solutions you might be tempted to think about for days usually solve themselves in minutes in the writing. Not specific enough? If you need an exact first step, I give you this:

Typically, identifying and solving the largest problem in front of you is all you have to do. Identify and solve. When we look at a work, no matter the medium. We're either satisfied (and that means we're finished) or we're not satisfied.

What leads us to feel unsatisfied? Something is not answered or it's answered in a wrong or distasteful way.

The good news is we can, with practice, learn to identify that the one main problem. Multiple problems group themselves together like the funny short characters in films or cartoons who stand on one another's backs wearing a trench coat in an effort to fool another, usually menacing character. Look for the one problem, solve it and move on to the next one. Eventually, all the problems will be solved and you'll be satisfied with your work. You'll be finished.

I'm a huge believer that there is no such thing as writer's block. Any sort of delay or difficulty, whatever name you give it, is only fear in some shape or other.

A smart writer -- meaning one who is dedicated to the craft, who is open to criticism and who considers himself a perpetual student --  must develop a blind trust in the powers of the calm brain. Any task that is set before us will always seem more difficult to some degree when we think about it away from pen or keyboard. Conversely, any challenge we face will always become easier during the act of writing.

At midnight yesterday, I received my prompt for Round 2 of the NYC Midnight contest about which I've been blogging for the last couple months: Drama / A Pier / A putter (a golf club). As is my normal procedure, I laced up my walking shoes and pounded the pavement, confident the juices would flow and deliver me a terrific start to a story.  An hour and a half later, I had ideas but not the one, good, big idea I needed to get started with confidence. At least that seed wasn't waving its hand to be recognized.

No one likes walking into the dark unfamiliar and I am no exception -- of course, ironically, I do walk late at night on familiar streets, as I've mentioned. I headed to the local coffee shop this morning with nothing more than crumbs in my virtual bag when what I wanted, felt I needed, was a whole muffin of a story idea. So what did I do?

I opened up Pages (Mac word processor) and I wrote. That's it. I wrote. I got my character stoned between the fifth and sixth holes on a disk golf course and turned the screws on him. That's what he gets for hiding, right? There's something about vomiting ideas into some visual form. Write it. Type it. As long as your fingers are engaged, you're on the right path. Yes, you'll be crapping crappy crap for a while, but something magical happens if you just let go. And thinking is for the birds. Some amount of it is necessary. I did some nasty thinking when the prompt came in. Confession: I didn't know exactly what made drama...drama. I searched for good definitions and examples so my mind would know where to go to dream, but that was pretty much the extent of it.

So consider this my trademarked writing law:

Writing success is directly proportional to the degree of activity in our fingers and the degree of stillness in our mind.

Said in a way that fits nicely onto a bumper sticker:

It all comes out in the writing.

Reading all of this, you might think I'm contradicting things I've written about writing in previous posts, that I sound like I'm writing by the seat of my pants. I guess that does require some clarification.

First off, I don't argue against seat of the pants writing. Nor do I argue against careful planning. But if you're facing a situation where you must sit and write, I'm arguing that you can ALWAYS do it. There is no wasted time and there is no wrong direction (provided you know the basic definitions required for the task at hand, such as my need to have the elements of drama better defined).

Especially for longer works, careful planning is necessary. It has been said that short stories, moreso than novel-length works, require it. Flash pieces -- especially flash pieces with a two-day deadline --  calls for a different process. But even in the careful planning stages I mention, there is a temptation to rub our foreheads, to dawdle and tell ourselves we're anguishing, squeezing out the good stuff.

Trust me when I say the good stuff only shows up when you're recording actual words, be they story, outline, synopsis or notes.

As much as I'd love to say it's not a numbers game, I admit it is largely that. A poor fisherman will catch more fish that an excellent fisherman who never goes near the water. If you never ask the pretty girl to the dance, she won't know you wanted to go. Wayne Gretzky once said, when criticized about the number of off-target shots he had taken over a span of play, and I paraphrase, "We miss 100% of the shots we do not take."

The same is true with submitting stories. If you don't submit, you can't get published. Simple as that. The more you submit the more chances you have to get rejected, true, but you also increase your chances of getting a piece accepted.

If you've ever heard the saying "There's someone for everyone" then you understand that eventually, even poor work gets accepted by someone. If this is true for the crappiest writers among us, then shouldn't the best among us have a far easier time?

Yes and no. It's better, but not simple. Some poor work eventually gets accepted, but some excellent work gets rejected too. In fact, a ton of it does. I won't steal the figures I've read about some of history's greatest authors beginning their careers with thousands of rejections, but it's true and dreadful and inspiring at once.

So what do we do with this knowledge? Mope? Celebrate? No. You submit. Then you submit again...and again. I say this bravely now, but I'm guilty of not submitting often. I have not enjoyed the process so far but I have turned a corner, have kicked myself in the pants and have been submitting at least once a day.

I used to play D & D and other role-playing games before computers could keep track of all the stats for you. That meant a shit-load of dice rolls. 4-sided, six-sided, eight-, ten-, twelve and twenty-sided dice. Over and over for every imaginable reason. I've seen every roll. Once I faced an overwhelming single character, a hero, who could have easily wiped out every one of my 2000-man army and proceeded to kill me, their docile king. For giggles, I asked the Dungeon Master (just as nerdy-sounding now as then) if I could attempt to kill the hero with a single catapult shot. The Dungeon Master -- we'll call him Tracy -- scratched his chin and murmured, "Nothing is impossible. You'd have to roll a 100." For those of you who are unfamiliar with what that means, "rolling a 100" meant rolling a 0 on each of two 20-sided dice: a 1% chance of hitting the hero. I rolled two zeros. I hit the hero. I did a backflip, so great was my joy. Then I had to roll for damage. Another zero would mean the hero was killed outright. I rolled a zero. I ran around the room Roger Rabbit-style for a minute while my sobbing opponent curse me, the dungeon master and the gods in general.

You see? I had the gall to ask. That alone allowed for the ridiculous luck to occur. Let's apply that to a submission.

You have a story about dog who has died and battles evil in the afterlife. It's well-written but, you fear an unsellably oblique idea for a story. What you don't/didn't know is publication/agent A has just lost a dog to an unfortunate popsicle accident. You ponder your options. You can bury the story in a stack or you can take the leap and submit it. Now you've unleashed yourself in two parallel universes. You #1 has a crazy story in a stack and no one gets hurt. You #2 however, has enjoyed a summertime popsicle so when you lick the envelope (supposing you're not submitting electronically) you leave a tint of blue sugar on the seal. A day or two later, the depressed recipient nears the end of his/her work day but sees a blue streak on the back of the top envelope that, somehow, has landed upside down. He/she opens the envelope to read about the heroic dead dog. It's a perfect healing fit. Voila, you're published. You #2 receives a publishing credit and a $10 check which he uses to buy a pair of 20-sided dice like he used to kill a hero a long time ago.

Bottom line: submit. The more you do the easier the roll.

Another added benefit of submitting your work is that doing so forces an author to face reality. Once I finish a story, I generally feel a flush of pride. Another story complete. I could place it on a stack and think of it forever after as a special accomplishment. Or I could plan to show it at critique. That shines a light on the work and forces the author to take a closer look. After all, real people are going to read it and judge me to some degree for its weaknesses and strengths. The next level is submission. This is the world looking at your story. You're not simply getting the work ready for colleagues; this is the world. Knowing the story is going in front of a stranger who will be being scrutinizing your work for its fitness to be shown to potentially thousands of viewers forces an author to make the story as perfect as possible. Knowing this is the end goal for the story only helps the author's craft.

So by submitting, you improve your craft and increase your chances for adding items to your resume. In my mind, that qualifies as a win-win.

What Do A Lobster, A Waiting Room and the Fantasy Genre Have in Common? It turns out, not very much. Still that was the prompt my group was given in the second round of the NYC Midnight contest that ran from a minute until midnight on Friday until the same on Sunday night:

• Genre: Fantasy
• Location: A travel agency
• Object: A lobster

When I received the prompt, I deflated.

Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre I've read but not deeply and not recently. I suppose Gaiman is fantasy, but I think that's not the sort we're talking about here.

A Travel Agency
To be truthful, I've never spoken to a travel agent, nor have I used the services of a travel agency.

Lobster
I don't like the idea of lobster, the bottom feeders. I don't like their treatment, their pincers rubber banded together, the overcrowded retail tanks, their eventual live dive into boiling water.

I repeat: I deflated.

Not only was I not stoked about any of the three elements of the prompt, I found joining all three of them into a story particularly difficult. With some difficulty, I could marry Fantasy with Travel Agency. I could create a believable equivalent of a medieval or such travel agency. I could marry Fantasy with a Lobster. That was possibly the easiest combination of the three. And I could marry a lobster with a Travel Agency with a Lobster. Okay THAT would be the easiest of the three. But it was that third element that kept throwing a wrench into my thinking.

Scenario: A fellow goes into a travel agency, ends up on a vacation with a beach. Voila! Lobster. Do I introduce a fantasy creature? A secret door into a fantasy world? Introduce a quest?

The problem was not so much that I could think of a storyline; it was that I couldn't think of a storyline that fit into the 950-word flash fiction format. By the time I've done the travel agency thing, there's little more room for the introduction of the story itself.

Reading this, you might be thinking there are a hundred things coming to mind, but my thinking was this: everyone is going to go funny; everyone is go funny or cutsy. But this is a competition. I not only need to write a solid story, but the real marketing truth of the matter is that my story needs to stand out as well. I'm not talking about in a cliche' way though. I mean I couldn't simply go with my first idea. That's the one most folks run with due to the 48-hour time constraint. I needed to think a couple levels deeper and still have a good story.

I ran into dead end after dead end. Unable to sleep and finding no success dreaming on the prompt, I decided I had to walk. 

From a very early age, I would piss my mom off by skipping the school bus and walking home. On the walk home, I would sing, monologue, create poetry (that I never wrote down) or read. Even now, when faced with deadlines, I find that a long walk or a long bicycle ride is a perfect way to release the brain juices.

I headed out at 4am. In 2 miles, I had gotten a mild workout, seen hordes of bats gobble up less fortunate hordes of insects and had come up with the seed of the story line that could combine the disparate prompt elements. It was like magic. It never fails. I headed to the San Antonio Writers Guild Saturday write-in at 8am tired and not having written a word but armed with a short arc.

The next time you're faced with a difficult challenge, be it personal, professional or creative, I suggest finding some rhythmic activity to lull your mind into its deeper workings. There's a drumbeat to how we think and that sort of activity can bring it out when you need it.

To write even when one isn't writing sounds manic and there probably is a manic aspect to it, but mania comes with the territory.

This week, Sunday (June 7th) until yesterday, proved to be a test of will. My older son attended a cycling development camp in Lubbock. Relative to my home in San Antonio, Lubbock sits in that gray zone where it's a bit too close to fly in and a bit too far to drive. So I had to drive him in.

It's a 7-hour trip one way with stops. That wouldn't be so bad if a few days separated the drive up and the drive back but, for mundane reasons related to remaining days, I needed to drive back the next day, Monday, a work day. Camp lasted through the week and pickup was on Friday, another work day. And I decided, in the interest of keeping costs down, I'd drive back the same day.

With two workdays lost, I needed to squeeze five workdays into three. Let's break that down:

• Sunday: 7-hour drive
• Monday: 7-hour drive
• Tuesday: 13-hour work day starting at 4am so I could make my Tuesday night critique.
• Wednesday: 13-hour work day
• Thursday: 12-hour workday, which leaves me 2 hours in the hole. I'll knock those out today, Saturday.
• Friday: 14 hours of drive time, half of which was spent in close quarters with a teenager who needed to relate his experience, including sharing the dorm with about 500 cheerleaders who were, in his words,"No, dad, you don't understand-" hot.

Can I get a holy shit up in this mutha?

But what does any of this rant have to do with writing? Two things, really.

1. You never stop writing, even when you're not actually writing.
   Whether or not you have a story in the works. Endless time to one's self is a perfect time to brainstorm ideas. Passing endless miles brings one into contact with innumerable settings, people and situations, any one of which can spark an idea or a character.
    
2. It turns out there really are times you can let yourself off the hook and not write.
   I'm a self-proclaimed advocate of writing every day. I've missed a day or two along the way in the last three years and have always kicked myself for having done so. The excuse never seems to justify breaking my promise to myself. But this week proved too daunting. I wrote Sunday and Monday; a 7-hour drive left me enough of my faculties to produce decent work but the remainder of the days sapped every ounce of energy I had. That being the case, I still had my head in the game.

The Factory Effect

After sitting at the computer for 13 hours (which is really a 15-hour commitment with breaks and lunch) one might not have the energy to put fingers to keyboard another moment, but something curious happens during drudging tasks that I like to call the factory effect.

I used to work at the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville. My responsibilities there never didn't include hour upon hour of mind-drubbing simple, tedious tasks. My mind was basically turned off for eight hours at a time. During that spell in my life, I was performing in a band. I was always writing music, humming to myself, tapping out rhythms, etc. I found that when I got home at the end of the day, all that churning over a tune or rhythm translated into a couple hours of intense focus and creativity. I wrote some of my best pieces after work.

I find this phenomenon to hold true in any artistic endeavor. Waiting rooms, long drives, family obligations, time at work. These can all be used to our advantage. These are times to wind up, to pull the bow string back. When that energy is released, you can run for miles.

I was initially going to title this post "The Value of Hand-writing Your Story" but I realized even before my fingers hit the keyboard that there is value in changing up your method, locale, genre, preferred length of work and more whenever daily writing takes on aspects of being a chore instead of a beloved outlet and means of self-expression.

In recent weeks, I have to admit, I've had a difficult time keeping the passion flowing into my writing. I suspect that the recent stumble onto a story idea that is too similar to an existing one--that was actually made into a movie, for God's sake, that I had heard NOTHING about--is behind my diminished focus and direction.

So, did I give up writing every day? No. Did I suffer from writer's block. No. So what did I do?

I struggled, first of all. It wasn't easy but what I found worked for me was identifying and changing up every aspect of my writing. Instead of writing at my writing station--which is nothing more than turning my chair 180° from my work work station to face my laptop--I moved my laptop downstairs, onto the back patio, to various coffee shops, and in my car using an inverter plugged into the cigarette lighter. Instead of whittling away on my novel-length works, I went to the opposite extreme, challenging myself to write Twitter-length (140 characters, not words, characters) stories and slightly longer flash fiction pieces. And in the last week, instead of using the laptop, I've been writing longhand in one of the composition notebooks left over from my recent engagement at Eisenhower.

As a result of these changes, I was able to keep writing every day. Trudging along the way I was, I was risking a genuine burn-out. Now I have emerged, eager to get back to my old ways soon, not quite yet but soon. I'm actually liking the pace and method of writing longhand for the piece I'm working on. I think, in the interest of consistency, I'd be wise to finish the first draft in the same manner I started. Doing so is nowhere near as fast as far as letters per minute is concerned but there's something more focused about writing this way.

So my advice to you is try to recognize early when you're entering a burn-out phase and stir the pot in any and every way you know how. The works you're in the middle of can probably wait and would probably be better served if you did. Deal with the burn-out first then return to work as usual but exercise care not to make your burn-out an easy excuse to get sloppy with your writing. Your focus is still on the craft even if everything around it has changed for a time.

Allowing enough time for writing while holding down a full-time job has got to be the hardest part of a committed writer's lifestyle. Add to the mix quality family time, exercise and time for self-reflection and the task becomes even harder.

Solutions: quit the full-time job; reduce the quality of work at the full-time job; get fat; do coke; go mad; suicide; bag up the family and drop them off a bridge; quit writing. All of these are poor solutions, especially the quitting writing, so what's a girl to do? (Sorry, I've been writing the Mr. Salley story for too long now.)

I've read versions of this advice a number of times in different sources, so I'll skip the credits. Basically what they all get at is how important it is for a new writer to map out what you do everyday for maybe a week. After the week, take a look at the blocks of time that you've wasted--and there will be more than you could have imagined.

Taoists (yes I am) believe that you can't save time, no matter what infomercial tool you buy, you can only waste it. That reminds me of another rule that I should add to the list of writers' rules that I've tried to compile in the past. You know, it's the one that starts out with write every day without exception.

New Rule: TV is the devil! Avoid all of it (except project runway, bbc news and english premier league football, of course).

Now that you've identified what the devil is, you can walk around him, work around it. Voila! You now have time for writing. By eliminating TV from your life (with the previously-stated exceptions) you've not only freed up time for writing, you've freed up your mind, you've saved your job, your life, your family and a trip to the bridge.

I profess writing every day, no exceptions. And in August, I technically kept my word: I wrote everyday. But the writing I did can't be confused with progress. Sometimes life gets in the way.

If I am reasonable, I have to admit there are some events that, since they only occur once in life, you have to shuffle your priorities. This summer was rife with a number of such once-in-a-lifetime events, but August was the Devil incarnate. After the annual sacrifice of the majority of July to the Tour, August brought The Olympics followed directly by the DNC and now the RNC. Thank heavens the latter is nigh unwatchable, but things are destined to heat up when McCain...who am I kidding. Regardless of my feelings about the RNC, I owe it to myself as a thinking American to listen intently to as much as I can tolerate as it is undeniably historic.

So what does a writer do at times like these? All we can do is to do our best to keep the momentum going, keep our self-talk positive, churn out something, read about writing during the commercials or over a short lunch. We can waste as little time in other areas of our lives to allow for more writing time. And don't forget all the preparation we can achieve in our heads while we're driving to and from errands or, in my case, riding or exercising. As I log miles on my bike or on the treadmill, instead of listening to my favorite music or thinking about every pedal stroke or step after step, I'm solving the multitude of problems that arise during the writing of a piece.

I often read a short Taoist passage or look elsewhere for a wise thought to contemplate throughout the day. Today was no different. I read a quote by the 13th-century Chinese landscape painter Chao Meng-fu who explained it took twenty to thirty years to truly master his art. Here's the quote*

A child hardly weaned starts to paint in the morning and in the evening boasts of his skill. Really such a person still smells of his mother's milk. It takes generally ten years for an artist to gain familiarity with painting materials, another ten years to complete the general training and yet another ten to be able to develop his own style. The open-minded student is too busily concerned with corrections of his shortcomings to be thinking of sudden popularity. The reward will come to him inevitably with maturity of his craft. Therefore I say, avoid early popularity in order to reach a higher goal.

I wanted to slit my wrists after reading this. (Of course don't do that. Stay in school, don't do drugs, hug a tree, all of that.) But after contemplating the words through the day, the deeper meaning soaked past my protests.

We all dream. There's nothing wrong with that. I imagine myself at signings, taking part in interviews, but can I honestly say that when I sit down to write I'm even past the first stage Meng-fu described? Probably not. But is that a fact to be mourned? Again, probably not. What is more important, instant success and all the crap that comes with it, or later success after you attained confident control and repeatability your craft? I would be tempted to accept the former, but the latter sounds like the path of longevity to me.

So, if offered a chance to publish before my skills are honed, I may accept, but I feel I will be in a better position to refuse some in lieu of others rather than jumping like a whore at the first offer.

That being said, I have to keep in mind that I'm nearly 41 at the time of this writing. I don't have 30 years to get my chops. So what can I do to reduce the time it takes me to get good? Toward the end of my work day, I had arrived at a short list.

• With the dedication of a farmer, write every day.
• With the dedication of a professor, read about writing every day, about skills as well as about how other writers have found success.
• With the dedication of a recovering addict, surround yourself at every opportunity with more experienced writers than oneself.
• With the dedication of a victim, always speak positively about yourself and your craft.
• With the dedication of a child, enjoy writing as you did the first day you discovered your love for it.

If you walk with this dedication in your dreams, awake, working and writing, the success will find you. And when it does, nothing about your life will have changed and you won't know you've succeeded.

*The Tao Is Quiet, Raymond M. Smullyan, 1977

I have been unable to integrate hosting my sister's visit with continuing to write every day. When she and I are out, we laugh and walk so much that, by the time the day is done, I'm too pooped to think or write. She's only here for a week, so instead of fretting about going back on the oath I took at the beginning of the year to write each and every day of 2008, I ammended the oath to allow family to take precidence when necessary.

And that brings up the issue of writing vacations in general. When I say "writing vacation" I'm not talking about planning out two weeks in a shalet in Colorado where you wake up each morning and the only thing standing between you and a full day of intermittent writing and gazing thoughtfully out the window is the need for another cup of coffee and ADHD--though that sounds like a delicious two weeks. I'm talking about a vacation from writing. A day or more to let the batteries recharge or to allow oneself to look at the work, consciously or subconsciously, from a different angle or at a slower pace. Are writing vacations acceptible or even necessary or are they harmful? If they are acceptible, then when are they so and how long should they be? And how frequently should they be taken? For the sake of the article, I'll assume they are at least acceptible.

So what are the arguments in favor of writing vacations? I've already mentioned the battery recharging aspect and the fact that taking a few steps back allows one to view the current work(s) with a bit more ease or from a different angle. When the greats in the 19th century wrote, they may have written voraciously for the time, but in this modern time of ubiquitous voraciousness, their habits may have been more relaxed than we've been taught to remember them. A cannonball reponds well to being shot out of a cannon; however, most things in the world need careful handling, air and time to develop. Think of bread.

Or consider the men in an army unit. Can they march every day and be expected to fight in their best form? Maybe for a while, and there's a lot to be said for pushing oneself to leanness, but eventually fatigue sets in. The same holds true in writing. At least, speaking for myself, the time I've taken away from writing--four days now--has shown me a couple important things: I have a strong hunger to return to it the moment her feet are on the plane back to Tennessee and when I do return to writing, I have some very clear goals that I don't think would have occurred to me in the midst of the every-day march. Though I didn't set this time aside on purpose, it has both lightened and enlightened me.

So how long and how frequent? My wife and I discuss this topic regularly, but back to writing. If my sister's visit is any good indication, four days seems to be ample to take away from writing if you feel the need. Maybe three days would be better, because when I think about it, the first day was spent in a puddle of guilt. Once I resolved my guilt was unfounded, I could enjoy the next three days as a true vacation.

Keep in mind that time away from writing is not time you never think about writing. You're a writer. You're going to think about writing with the same frequency you always do. That is, you always do, right? What I'm saying is you don't have to get any physical writing done. And if you want to, do it. You're not forbidden to write. A writing vacation is a smallish block of time you let yourself off the hook. If the vacation rolls around and you feel like writing, write, but you can't complain about having written and you must wait until the next writing vacation (which you should already have planned before the current one is over) before you take a day off again.

As far as the frequency, your guess is as good as mine. I'm sure it would differ from writer to writer. I have considered taking every Wednesday off, for instance, or every other Tuesday. Maybe I could take off four days every seasons. The combinations are endless, but I think it should be something that you look forward to. Knowing there's a day out there that you can just drift with ideas instead of build another row in the wall is, for me, a good thing. In the 70s, there was the band Loverboy who preached that everybody is working for the weekend. I think that's sound advice. Writing is a beautiful gift and I love writing every day, but there's work involved and that's the part I personally need a break from once in a while.

I'd love to know how others approach this idea.

Some authors I have talked to believe a book can't teach one how to write. Some say you should simply write and have the work critiqued. Some say you should read the work of other authors and study what they have done. Others believe you should get your hands on any and every book that's written. Some even believe that a real author should hold a masters in fine arts.

I subscribe to the believe that if you immerse yourself in Writing (note the capital W) you'll do just fine, hell, more than fine. I believe it is one's deep, honest interest and daily dedication to the craft that will, in the end, make for a better writer. That emersion should probably come in part from all the forms mentioned above. The most important element is the dedication to improvement itself.

If you ask ten authors, you'll get ten different opinions on how to become a better writer. But what works for them may not match your style or even lead you to the correct goal. You have to know yourself and what type of writer you want to be in the end. You need to find your guidance in writers who are working toward the same goal or who are there now. But even then, you have to do it your own way or else you'll just be a poor copy of that other person.

Think about popular music. Each of us has our favorite type of music. Better yet, each of us has an image of what kind of music we would want to perform if we could live the dream. For me, it's a mix of melody, techno and hard rock. Would I get my best advice on how to from Carrie Underwood or Marilyn Manson. Manson, right? But even then, I wouldn't strive to become Manson. Instead, I would model my study after him, using my own experiences and pressing toward a goal of my own definition.

Do the same with your pursuit of writing. I love Neil Gaimon (among others), but I don't want to be spoken of as another Neil Gaimon. I'd rather get a call from him someday in which he tells me he's enjoyed a certain story or a certain something-or-other I added to a story. I think that can only happen if I continue to dive into Writing every day.

So what do I do? Outside of actually putting pen to paper every day without exception, I give myself a lot of wiggle room when it comes to my enrichment. One day, I'll read fiction. Another day, I'll read about the limited omniscient point of view, which, following a luke-warm critique of the beginning of a short story, was recently necessary. I also subscribe to Writers Digest, so some day's I'll read an article before bed. I also have a yahoo page set up that is pretty much nothing but feeds from writing-related sites: blogs, podcasts, traditional websites. Having readily available writing links allows me to keep myself moving forward even while I'm at work. Again, it's the connection to Writing, not the specific activity that I feel is most important.

www.sawritersguild.com

I became a member of the San Antonio Writers Guild early in 2007. Now I'm not normally a joiner, but having read extensively about what to and what not to do to become a successful writer, I joined. I felt out-of-place and I didn't enjoy it but I believed everything I had read couldn't be wrong, right? So I stuck it out and returned until, around the beginning of summer, I had relaxed out of my natural social shell enough for it to feel, to a certain extent, normal.

The meetings run like this: you have your normal speech about the state of the Guild including good news / bad news, introduction of new members, news about contests or scams. That first drubbing of boredom ends with the obligatory pleas for members to become more active, head up committees, bring in guests, write more, and so on.

Then, if the person who was tricked into heading up the committee in charge of rounding up a guest speaker has done the work, a guest speaks about writing, publishing or their book that just came out. With guest speakers, it's hit or miss. Oh, how much I'd love to give specific examples of guest speakers who have not only failed to hold my interest, but who have tempted me to consider putting violence upon them. But when a guest speaker is good, it's so worth having attended. Take last night's guest (February '08 monthly meeting) Marcus Henderson Wilder, a 70-year-old man who warned us that he had never been asked to speak before a crowd before so to please stop him at 20 minutes. Nearly 45 minutes passed and no one in the crowd lifted a finger, nor did it likely cross anyone's mind to do so. Though he did speak in a side-tracked way, sometimes not returning to a point, everything he had to say captivated the room. (Check out his book, Naïve & Abroad: Pakistan : Travel in a Land of Mullahs at iUniverse.) Folks who have lived interestingly and have taken the time to document in writing their adventure are an inspiration.

Finally, the membership breaks into groups by genre. I meet with the other fiction writers while others meet with non-fiction or children's literature and whatever other genres are represented. In those smaller groups, whomever has up to 15 pages of work to share with the group hands out copies, someone reads and each member takes his turn offering feedback. The goal is the help one another become better writers. I've heard of some critique groups whose membership is infected with competitiveness and rivalry, but I haven't run into those darker qualities since joining.

I joked last night that coming to the Guild meetings--and the critique group that meets outside of the monthly meeting, but I'll write about that another time--is the opposite of a 12-step program to quit addiction. For me, the idea is to keep coming so that I might develop a positive addiction. And it's helped. I continue to write every day...something...just keep writing no matter what has happened.

Can I get a hell-yeah because hell, yeah.

The argument is pretty short actually. The famous quote from Richard Bach, and the one I've had posted on the wall next to me from the day I took up writing again after a 17 year hiatus--hope I didn't make you spit your coffee onto your monitors with that revelation--reads: "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit."

So the argument may be based on semantics, but Bach doesn't question whether the writer is an author. He implies that an unpublished or unpracticed author is still an author. He's an amateur.

So, by all means, refer to yourself as an author. If you write with any level of seriousness, welcome to the business. It's not like your inclusion leaves less room for the rest of us.

And referring to yourself as an author, even if your level of confidence only allows you to say it in your head, is an important tool. Who can work, thinking of themselves as a pretender? I believe thinking of myself as an author is an important step in my ability to write every day. How else could I justify to myself, or my wife, or my children, or my dog, the long hours I accumulate over a week and over--what is it now?--a year-and-a-half? And still no finished book?

In all the literature I've read and no matter which of the dozens of published or otherwise serious, professional-minded writers I've spoken to, the consistent advice is consistent.

1. Write every day, no matter what, where or how many words. 95% of my days are writing days. I know that I had better have a whopper of a reason if I go a day without. I am proud to feel like a loser on the rare day I skip, even when that whopper of a reason rears its devilish head.
    
2. Similarly, it is wise, if not necessary, to join a fellowship of writers. Perfect clubs, writing partners or critique groups do not exist so you shouldn't spend time looking for that perfect situation. The point is to be around people who are serious about writing. Doing so refreshes my batteries and reminds me that no matter how hard a problem with whatever aspect of my writing may be at the time, there are others out there who face and conquer the same challenges every day. They help me if I need help and I help them.
    
3. As obvious as it sounds, don't forget you're telling a reader a story. If you're getting into writing to publish, you've stepped into the dark side. Gone are the days when you can write strictly to see the ink flow or the pixels light up with your genius. Now you are telling a story, so you are obliged to cut out the extreneous crap, move the story ahead, stay on task and reward the reader wtih everything you've promised him throughout the writing. It's a good idea to do a fair amount of reading when you first get started. By reading the reviews, you can find plenty of good books.
    
4. Shut up. Stop thinking. Stop making excuses. And write. No matter how much other advice you get, including 1-3 above, it all boils down to this.

If I've learned anything besides the rules above, it's that a dedicated writer must always keep engaged and open to learning. If one thinks he has mastered writing, he's probably only mastered the opinions of the people he chooses to keep around him.

Always learn.