Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 Hi, my name is Kelly, and I have a filing problem.
Actually, that’s not true. I don’t have filing issues. I can file if I absolutely have to.
Unfortunately, I always have more paper to file than I have time to do it in. And, I have other priorities…so when I get squeezed for time, filing is the last thing I want to do. After a while, the piles get so numerous I shove them into boxes.
See the crazy notes I leave for myself? The note on the left-most box says, “Writing To-Do: Immediately.” The note on the box beside it says, “To Do by December 31, 2009.” Um…yeah.
I took these photos in December, but the boxes had been sitting there months before that.
I have whittled it down to two boxes. But that’s only because I’ve had to paw through the boxes several times in the last few weeks and I made some executive decisions to throw a bunch of stuff in the trash (which is much easier than filing). But the fact is:
I just don’t want to do it.
Every once in a while, that attitude spills into my writing.
In Chapter 10 of my WIP, there’s a particularly badly-written scene with some unbelievable dialogue that needs to be reconstructed from scratch. It’s full of archaic language and I’d bet a few “as you know, Bobs.”
It’s going to take some time. And I don’t want to waste it…even knowing that the scene can be a hundred times better.
I’ve procrastinated so long that I’ve already edited through Chapter 21. Imagine how anti-climatic it’ll be to get to “The End” and have to go back and edit something halfway through the book. I’m not looking forward to it. When I type “The End,” I want it to be the end.
So…I’m going to take care of it. Within the week.
Maybe after I tackle that scene, I’ll get up the gumption to finally get those boxes out of my office.
Won’t you join me? What have you been procrastinating about? If there’s nothing in your way…take care of it!
Monday, July 5th, 2010 I’m flattered that Annette Bowman from the blog The Stars are Not Made of Fire was interested enough to ask me a few questions about me, my writing process, and advice for beginners.
I find Annette to be a fascinating person who likes to live in her pajamas — since they’re the most comfortable clothes in the world. (Of course!) I heartily agree, and if I could, I’d spend my days in pajamas just like Annette. Alas, the working world frowns on this.
PJs not withstanding, Annette’s blog is an interesting read. Visit just for that, even if you’re not interested in hearing me blather on.
On the other hand, if you’d like to read the interview, please visit Annette’s blog for the scoop.
Thursday, July 1st, 2010 What do you do with all your old notes?
Last night was my monthly meet up with my critique group and the topic of critique paperwork came up. The majority of our group does as I do:
- accepts the paper-based copy of the critique
- goes through it page by page as we edit and update our WIPs
- files it away for future refernce
One brave soul in our group updates his work in progress and then tosses all the critiques he received!
I’m not the only one who was sitting at the table stunned and amazed. Why would you ever throw out notes? What if you needed to refer to them later?
I’m in the process of editing a novel. To the right of me, on my desk, are all the copies of the critiques I’ve received from my current group, and some from fellow on-line writers. (Those I could have kept electronically, but when I refer to one document and am typing on another, I like to have a hard copy.)
As I’m working, I realize that I’ve worked through some of these crits already…but advice I wasn’t willing to take a few weeks or months ago is starting to look pretty good right now. What if I’d tossed these papers when I’d done my initial re-write?
I know of one author who painstakingly logs into a spreadsheet each comment from every critique she receives for a story. I’m not sure if she tosses out the critiques when she’s done — though having gone that route she certainly could. But to me, that just seems like too much work. I’d rather spend my time writing something new.
So: what’s your process? What do you do with your critiques once you’ve evaluated them…this inquiring writer wants to know.
Sunday, June 27th, 2010 We’ve been reading a lot of “Frog and Toad” books around the house, lately. They’re juvenile, but I’m really enjoying them. The author, Arnold Lobel, has an understated wit that sometimes flies over the head of youngsters, but is quite humorous.
Right now we’re reading “Frog and Toad are Friends.” (I HIGHLy recommend it. It’s a Caldecott Honor book, too, if you need more than my endorsement to pick it up.)
In the book is a short story called, “The Story,” in which Toad’s friend Frog is sick in bed and he asks Toad to tell him a story while he is resting.
Toad’s game for this, but he isn’t sure where to begin. So, for inspiration, he sits down and thinks about it for a while. He can’t come up with anything he likes, so he goes out on the porch to pace while he thinks. Unfortunately, this proves as fruitless as sitting and thinking. So, he comes back inside and stands on his head.
“Why are you standing on your head,” asked Frog.
“I hope that if I stand on my head, it will help me to think of a story,” said Toad.
Toad stood on his head for a very long time. But he could not think of a story to tell Frog.
Next, Toad tries water as a stimulant.
“Why are you pouring water over your head?” asked Frog.
“I hope that if I pour water over my head, it will help me to think of a story,” said Toad.
Toad poured many glasses of water over his head. But he could not think of a story to tell Frog.
Then, Toad banged his head against the wall.
“Why are you banging your head against the wall?” asked Frog.
“I hope that if I band my head against the wall hard enough, it will help me to think of a story,” said Toad.
This scene just makes me laugh.
There are days, like Toad, when I feel like banging my head against the wall when approaching a particular scene. I usually make myself a little note in brackets [write fight scene here] and then move on to the small stuff. I come back to the troublesome prose later.
Poor Toad’s problem was that he wanted a “good” idea for a story. My opinion: he should have run with whatever he came up with first. A bad idea is still an idea. It can be used up, embellished upon, and discarded (if necessary) later. Any idea is one you can work with. Dressing it up usually leads to others.
If you’re stuck: try writing about the first thing that comes into your brain. Use it as a thoroughfare to your next writing destination. You don’t need to keep it forever. Edit it out at the next pass. But use the idea to stimulate others.
In my opinion, there’s no such thing as a bad idea. There may be better ones, but how do you know until you’ve written it?
Friday, June 25th, 2010  I got angry this week.
That’s not unusual….but this week I got really, stinking, spitting, crying angry when I heard the freaking, rotten news about…
…well, I can’t get into it here. (For my co-workers who read this blog: nope, it wasn’t about Thursday.)
How did I release the stress?
I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I put my “angry song” on the car stereo and played it over and over and over again about a million times on my way to work…at about a million decibels loud.
I’d forgotten how cathartic it is to literally SCREAM away the hurtful feelings while belting out the lyrics.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m still spitting angry about the situation…but that initial hot-faced, head-pounding feeling is gone. I’m on a low simmer. Worse, there’s nothing I can do about the situation because I’m not in control. Well…I could air my feelings to the offending party, but that’s only going to cause hurt feelings all the way around and still not change anything… I’m stuck.
(Those of you who know me very well know that I can’t let this lie for too long. Otherwise, it’s just going to fester. I need to get it out before I explode. Timing, of course, is everything…)
Here’s Your Prompt: Write a scene where the main character hears something that made him the angriest he’s ever been. (This character could be you, btw.) What brought on the anger…betrayal? A lie? An accident? How about a revealing, devastating truth?
Show your character’s anger, don’t tell it. Relate how your character initially felt upon getting angry. Did the anger strike all at once? Or, did it bloom from something less? What physical symptoms did you character feel? Pounding head? Hot face? Burning eyes? Chest pain?
Write it so your reader can feel it, too.
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010  I found this wasp’s nest under my eaves on Sunday. I was stunned by its size…completely amazed at how fast this thing got there.
Suddenly, I was facing a very unpleasant experience. How was I going to get this thing down without a zillion stings? (And believe me, I know what a zillion wasp stings feel like–ask me later.)
The Husband of Awesome™ and I dithered over what to do. We had some wasp and hornet spray, but using it meant getting within 20 feet of the nest, according to the can. Was that far enough away?
We could try shooting from the upstairs window. Very awkward.
Not only that, we’d used this spray on tiny nests, beginners, if you will. Would it work on something this big?
We considered knocking the nest off with a broom, again from the upstairs window. This would mean shoving the entire broom out the window and swatting at the nest with little leverage. And what if we knocked that nest into the window?
With one good swipe, we might be able to drop both nest and broom to the deck below and slam the window against angry wasps. Could we do it?
Are you seeing how this relates to writing, and more specifically, writer’s block?
For me, getting through writer’s block has always been about knowing where I want the story to end up…and just maneuvering to get there. I don’t have to know all the details to keep the story flowing and the words coming.
Here was an interesting twist: I had my ending (So long, wasp’s nest!) but I was blocked by the consequences of what my actions could cause. Paralyzed by indecision. There were so many possibilities, I didn’t know which was best or most appropriate. Have you encountered this problem with your writing?
Here’s what we did about the wasps:
- We waited until 11 p.m. (hoping the cooler air would make the wasps more sluggish) and used the spray from the upstairs window.
- This resulted in some VERY ANGRY wasps. (Do you know the sound of a zillion wasps rumbling within the confines of their own nest? Frightening. And louder than you might imagine.) They poured out of the nest like gasoline. It was all we could do to shut the window.
- We learned that 5:00 in the morning is cooler than 11:00 p.m. (Duh.) and decided to give the spray a chance from the deck below.
- This resulted in some less-than-stellar results. The spray mostly dissipated into a cloud about 10 feet from the can as the propellant lacked the oomph to reach the eaves. The narrow stream of insecticide that reached the wasps only served to rally them. Coolness was obviously not an issue.
- We abandoned the broom idea, even after examining all the brooms we own and choosing the heavy-duty push broom from the garage.
- I really wanted to try it, but the Husband of Awesome™ didn’t relish the idea of spending the morning in the ER with me…
And that’s when he got a brilliant idea. Why not use the hose?
And there was the answer to the writing dilemma…when multiple possibilities loom, try them all. (I attempted all ideas, even the “bad” one. After all, the broom had been considered, approved, chosen, and carried to the window…) What’s the cost of writing it all to see which works best…some words tried and discarded? Time lost doesn’t count: it’s a wash when compared to what may be lost in indecision.
Working through all the possibilities gets the creative juices flowing. In the midst of apparent defeat, a new idea may be, as ours was, formulated, considered, and executed.
The next time I’m faced with similar writing circumstances, I’m going to write each possibility to see which one fits the situation the best. I hope that doing so leads me to that final possibility: the one I hadn’t considered at first (or even thought of) but is the right one to conclude the situation.
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| So long, wasps! |
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010  I’m too tired to write.
It’s been a craptastic™ week so far with me getting up way to early and going to bed far later than is actually good for me, and spending a lot of time on the road (over 500 miles in the last few days). I’m just a tad stressed.
My brain is fried. (I can feel it taking way longer than it should for me to hammer this out…)
Fiction, tonight, is not going to happen.
That’s a hard statement for me to type. I try to write fiction every day. Daily writing is a good method for keeping in the groove. If I let a few days pass without writing — for any reason — I sometimes have a hard time pushing past the inertia to get the words to flow again.
I keep a little spreadsheet (okay, it’s kind of a big spreadsheet) where I record the statistics of my writing. I despise typing in a big fat ZERO on any day of the week (because, let’s face it, once I do, it populates through about a dozen columns of tallies and percentages and MOCKS me). It’s a fabulous motivational tool, but the flip side, of course, is the letdown. I don’t like to let myself down.
But I knew heading into this week that fatigue was going to play a major role. Making my (self-imposed) word-count minimums would be a real struggle. After all, it’s hard to write when your brain won’t function. I’ve done it before…but it takes so much longer than when my mind is fresh.
But this week I decided to give myself a break and take a few days off, just until I can get a good night sleep, and get the mileage under control. I bought a handful of new books yesterday afternoon, and resolved to read them all. (I’ve read them all, but one, already.) And I’ve made a good dent in the knitted sock project I started. Tonight, I’m going to finish the last book, and (I hope) get to bed at a decent hour.
Tomorrow, I think, I’ll be ready to write. I caught myself daydreaming about my WIP on the long trek home from work tonight. Usually, nothing busts through the fatigue when I get like this. Maybe there’s something to be said for ignoring the taunting voice in my head.
I still have to write ZEROS on my spreadsheet…but I’ll annotate them to remind myself that time off can be just as valuable as pushing through the fatigue.
Monday, June 14th, 2010 Jason Kahn is an author published by Damnation Books, a sister company to Eternal Press. He and I met through the author boards and found we have a lot in common. His story, The Killer Within–available from Damnation Books–has racked up some impressive reviews.
 KAH: Who is Jason Kahn?
JK: I’m a husband, father of two boys, journalist, and writer of fiction when I’m not busy being any of those other things. My brood and I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, but I grew up in Rockville, Md., just outside of Washington, DC. I attended the University of Michigan as an undergrad and NYU for graduate school for a degree in journalism and science reporting. In my day job, I run a daily news service for cardiologists that is owned and operated by a research foundation. I began writing fiction seriously after college, and started getting published a few years ago. I have a handful of short stories and an e-book to my name as well as a continuing online series and an agreement to write a hardboiled crime novel for Fireside Mysteries, a small press house.
KAH: You work full time as an editor/writer for a large cardiology foundation. Do you feel that this helps or hinders your creative writing?
JK: If anything it helps. In my job as a news editor, I come across a ton of scientific material every day that I have to sift through in order to decide what’s worth writing about. A lot of these items, and I mean a LOT, lend themselves quite naturally to the realm of science fiction and/or fantasy. As a matter of fact, I contribute a monthly blog for Abandoned Towers Magazine in which I present news items I’ve collected from my job and describe how they can serve as springboards for really cool stories. Here’s a link to my latest one.
KAH: What do you do when you feel burned out on writing?
JK: I wage a continuing struggle to find time to write. I wish I had so much time that I had the opportunity to feel burned out. Alas, that has yet to occur.
KAH: Tell us your latest news.
JK: I have a few things going on at the moment. I have an e-book titled The Killer Within that was released by Damnation Books in late 2009. It’s a hardboiled crime thriller with just a dash of the paranormal. I also write an online detective series published by Abandoned Towers Magazine called The Dark InSpectre. This is also hardboiled crime fiction, but very noir and much darker, with a much more supernatural edge to it. New episodes are posted every two weeks. In addition, I have a fantasy short story titled Cold Comfort scheduled to come out in the July issue of Abandoned Towers. It’s about the true nature of love, and the terrible consequences that can occur when love is thwarted.
Incidentally, I believe you know the managing editor of Abandoned Towers, Crystalwizard? Didn’t she do the artwork for the cover of one of your books? She is also a supremely talented editor.
[KAH: Interrupting to affirm that Crystalwizard created the cover art for my story, The Dragon’s Tale.]
And lastly is the agreed-upon crime novel I mentioned earlier for Fireside Mysteries. I need to have a plot overview and the first three chapters by August. So between writing The Dark InSpectre and the novel at the same time, my little brain is quite occupied most of the time!
KAH: When and why did you begin writing?
JK: Academically, I was always drawn to it—high school newspaper, stuff like that. I was headed toward a journalism degree my second or third year in college, so I knew then that I wanted to be a writer. But it wasn’t until the summer after my senior year that I discovered I wanted to be a WRITER. I’d been reading scifi-fantasy books since I was a kid, and during my senior year, my then-girlfriend, now-wife, said to me, “hey, why don’t you write one of those?” Incredible as it may seem, the thought had never occurred to me before. That summer I started writing, and haven’t stopped since.
KAH: When did you first consider yourself a writer?
JK: It changes. Sometimes I think it was after my first short story sale. Sometimes I think it was after my first (and thus far only) professional short story sale. Sometimes I don’t really consider myself a writer at all because I don’t write fiction for a living. Sometimes I think that’s ridiculous because I do make a living writing and editing, just not fiction. Then there are other times when I think that if and when I have an actual novel published, like I hopefully will with the one I’m writing now, that I can honestly look in the mirror and say, Chum, you’re a writer, you are.
 KAH: Have your personal experiences shown up in your writing?
JK: A personal experience that did actually turn up in my writing derived from my inspiration for the Dark InSpectre series. It sprang from a dream I had, which turned into the first scene of the story. It involved the psychic ghost of a dead girl leading the main character, a telepathic cop (me in my dream), into a room with four prisoners (brothers) encased in blocks of semi-translucent material. Yes, I know, very strange dream. But more important than the actual scene was the mood. It was futuristic and very dark and brooding. I mulled over my dream for about a month as I wound a story around it. I saw it as a cross between L.A. Confidential and the psi-core of Babylon 5. And at heart it was a hardboiled crime thriller.
KAH: What authors have most influenced your writing?
JK: Many, many authors have influenced me: Raymond Feist, JRR Tolkien, Ursula K. Leguin, Anne Bishop, Patricia McKillip, Steven Brust, Katherine Kurtz, Sheri Tepper, Fritz Leiber, David Eddings, Stephen Donaldson, Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman, and James Ellroy to name a few.
Early on, I would say Feist and Eddings influenced me the most as I tried to write fantasy-adventures, but over the past few years, much more Ellroy as I’ve been writing more noir crime fiction. I read several detective fiction authors as I worked on The Dark InSpectre. Raymond Chandler, Peter Lovesey, and then I read James Ellroy. The Black Dahlia, L.A. Confidential, and many more. I wasn’t prepared, my mind exploded. I could not put them down.
The first-person narrative style he uses in some of his novels and the way he illuminates the darkness that dwells in the souls of his protagonists is very compelling. And his prose hits you like a hammer.
KAH: What book are you reading now? What do you like, or not, about it?
JK: I just finished reading At End of Day, by George V. Higgins. His most famous novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, was a crime drama that was the forerunner of much of James Ellroy’s and Elmore Leonard’s work. So after I finished that book, I read At End of Day, which also involved Boston-area crime figures. This book, though, was not nearly as good. It was almost entirely dialogue driven, to the point where I found myself wishing the characters would just stop talking for a single second. Still, I did learn a few things regarding the genre. Higgins’ knowledge of the mundane details that make up the criminal world is like a treasure trove, and his dialogue, while over used, is still right on the money in terms of how real people speak.
KAH: Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
JK: I’d say the biggest challenge is finding the time. Both to write and to just think about a story, to work it out in my head. I’m a news editor by day, and my job is extremely busy. I’m also a husband and father of two boys in elementary school. I’ll write whenever I can, but long stretches can go by during which I’m not writing. It can be very frustrating. I go on business trips about 4 times a year, and I find that I can get a lot of writing done on the plane if I’m traveling by air. It’s great getting a few hours of uninterrupted writing time during a flight.
Sometimes the writing itself can be hard. Not the “big scenes,” those are usually pretty well thought out. It’s the little scenes, the transitions, the mundane stuff. That can be extremely hard for me to write.
KAH: Do you have any advice for other writers?
JK: My advice for other writers is simple and direct. If you want to be a writer, sit your butt down and write—something, anything. But write. It doesn’t even have to be good. In fact, when you start, it will probably be crap, and that’s okay. You have to write a lot of crap before you can start writing goodly (see?). It’s how you learn. Write and submit your writing to people other than your family members and loved ones. That’s another way you learn. You’ll get criticism. Accept it graciously, even the stuff you don’t agree with. And above all, keep writing.
KAH: How can we find you? Website, Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc. – please share your links.
Website: www.jrkahn.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jrkahn
Blog: http://jasonkahn.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jkahn1
Friday, June 11th, 2010  Last week on the way home from work I saw the most interesting thing. It was an old-fashioned leg brace–perhaps the kind people are fitted with when suffering from polio–standing upright near a guardrail.
It struck me as a very strange object to see on the roadside.
I’ve seen plenty of missing shoes, singles and pairs, usually looking as if they’d been tossed or accidentally pushed out the car door while stopping for something else. I’m sure you’ve seen tennis shoes, laces tied, hanging over telephone wires. Never have I seen something appearing to stand at attention, drawing my eye, as this forlorn shoe did.
The brace was standing upright, turned toward the woods as if the owner simply stepped out of it and into the trees, never more to be seen. Perhaps this was the residue of a miracle?
I began to think about this brace: who could have worn it? How old was it? How did it get left behind? Why was it standing? (And lucky for me, if it hadn’t been, I may never have seen it.)
The day I remembered to drag my camera with me, the brace was gone, probably knocked over by mowers. So, sadly, you’re stuck with these imaginative photos rather than the real thing. But I think you get the idea.
Here’s your prompt:
Imagine the brace and the situation. As above, who owned it? How did it get there? Why was it standing? Don’t answer these questions literally. Tell the story. Show what happened. Bonus points if you leave the story in the comments.
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010  I’m trying to tie up some loose ends and get organized before leaving for Balticon on Friday. I’m participating in two readings, and I’ll be teaching a seminar on Saturday on How to Sell Short Fiction. I’m very excited.
One thing I’m doing is going through all the unfinished manuscripts on my desk. I want to take some with me to the hotel. Even though I’ll be busy, I’m certain to have some downtime to work on a few things. The question is, what should I take? Without wading through all the garbage here (the physical and the electronic), and tidying up a little, I don’t have a clue.
It’s a little like cleaning up before going on vacation. Are you familiar with the concept?
When I was growing up, my Mom made us clean the house top to bottom before we went on vacation. I hated doing that. (Hi, Mom! You knew that already, right?) It wasn’t the cleaning that I objected to, it was the time lost that I could be doing something else, like writing, or reading, or well, just about anything other than cleaning, that I really hated giving up.
But I have to admit, my Mom had it right. There was nothing better than coming home to a clean house when you arrive exhausted from vacation.
So that’s what I’m doing now, cleaning off the desk, filing away some papers, shoving various versions of WIPs into folders and putting them away (or into my rolly bag to go with me to the con). I’m also tackling that thumbdrive with three hundred files, all on the root.
I’m looking forward to the convention, but I’m also looking forward to coming home to a clean desk, my mind all juiced by nearly four days of sci-fi and fantasy fun. With a little luck, I’ll know just what to do — and have all that “convention high” enegy — to finish the WIPs and start something new.
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Writers - Maryland Writer's Assn.
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