#writr

A leaf that falls.

A drop from the sky.

You think they see me here? I wonder too. Every life matters until it’s your own, everyone knows that. The leaves rustle some more and I sink in deep. Each season I find a new place to sleep, do you know who I am?

I’m not sure either.

I hear the conversations passing by of friends and strangers and calls with mom. I hear the screams and distant wails and wonder for a moment who they are from.

A train.

A crash.

A puddle.

I lay in the leaves and sleep. How long has been this long? I wake, the world the same, a little colder. Ice covers the leaf-litter.

I hear them pass with giggles and hot drinks. Calls about coming home fill the air, anticipation for the end. I rise and dust myself off as I find my next resting place, no longer under the great oak tree.

I see another, lost in time, who are they? Who am I? I pass by. I find a spot, cold in comfort. A rock bed by the bank-line. I settle there, my bones are weary. Do you think they see me here? I wonder too. They pass me by, not a spared glance, a touch, a single whisper.

The world is still, frozen in time, sleeping, resting, breathing. I sleep.

A crack.

A splash.

A crunch.

I wake. Where am I? A green riverbed sprawled before me. This doesn’t look like where I rested before. It’s loud, and green, and alive. Who is there? Do they see me? A deer passes by.

The world is warm and awake with the thrills. A shrill screech breaks through, who’s there? I wonder of the origin.

The bugs buzz and the birds chirp and the deer stamps its hoof. The bunnies bound and the wolves are on their heels. I continue on. I find an old willow tree, it kisses me as I walk beneath it’s arms. I sit, I breathe, I sleep.

A howl.

The rain dripping through.

The plants tangled around one another.

I wake and rub my eyes. I look ahead and see children playing beneath the willow branches. A knight, a princess, a doomed lovers tale. They tackle the other and fall to the ground, laughter fills the air. I rise and walk by. Do they see me? I wonder too.

Black asphalt and grey concrete stretches before me. The glimmering lights flicker in my eyes. A theatre and a group of teenagers standing out front in the hot air. A kiss, a shove, teenage love, a tease, a holy moment. Do they see me? I wonder too.

A cat looks on and scurries along. A dog bark echos the streets. The older couple meanders through, ice-cream cones in hand. A hear a speech, a confession, a warning.

I tire, I wander to find a place to sleep. Something pushing through. I find a fountain in the park. I settle, I breathe, I sleep.

A star.

A light.

The passage of time.

I wonder if I should wake up. Do they see me? I wonder too. I’ve seen the life and the passing of such. The love, the pain, the heartbreak. Do I wake up or just pass on? Who is here to take my place? Should it end or continue again? A friend, a foe, a family. Do they see me passing by? What, who, where am I?

Tell me will you miss me?

Do you know who I am?

Recently I spoke to a group of young writers who were studying at an intensive writing workshop. They came from all over the world and many of them were obviously new to the craft. They’d been working at writing daily for about a month. As I listened to them critique one another’s stories, I realized that they were doing an amazing job of it. They were catching things that I’d seen, elaborating on problems nicely, suggesting new solutions, sometimes brainstorming alternate storylines, and in general they were learning how to think about stories. I was very impressed—more impressed with the criticism than the stories. However, I suspect that in a couple more months, I’ll find that their writing skills will have caught up with their critical skills. Which makes me wonder. I’ve noticed in the past that the best writers are quite often the best critics. If you concern yourself with the making of stories, it sort of makes sense that you will get good at it. But it doesn’t always follow: some critics aren’t interested in creating stories so much as they are interested in understanding them, and so their critical skills don’t translate to writing skills at all. Meanwhile, some writers work at such a deep subconscious level that they can’t quite communicate what they are doing. Yet time and time again, I’ve noticed that writers will develop the skill to think critically before they become fine writers. This is part of the reason that I encourage writers to form strong critique groups. There are other excellent reasons to form critique groups, though. Motivation. As a new writer, I remember dozens of times when I would go to a writing group feeling perhaps a little ho-hum and exhausted, only to find that a group member had won a writing award or gotten a story accepted for a major magazine or someone told how they loved my latest piece with tears in their eyes, and I left feeling far more motivated than when I’d some.Mirroring. I find that writers who are successful in writing groups often serve as good examples to the others. They set writing goals, meet them, get sales, and win awards—and those in their writing groups will subconsciously try to mirror their successful behaviors, so that if one author gains notoriety, others in the group will too.Accountability. Writers in groups often set goals together and share results, so that they end up being far more productive than those who don’t belong to the group.Shared knowledge and experience. By joining a group, a writer will find herself surrounded by others who often bring fresh ideas and new insights to the writer, encouraging them to consider new approaches to writing.But there are dangers and problems with critique groups. They can easily get too large, so that authors are running themselves ragged trying to critique diverse manuscripts. You sometimes find groups where petty jealousies devolve into one-upmanship, so that the writers in the group grow hypercritical. Last of all, critiquing a story can be time intensive. When you look at a story, you might want to consider questions like, “Is this the best protagonist for this piece?” “Who is the audience for the story?” “What if we moved it to third person instead of first?” “Does the title hook me?” “Do the opening sentences transport me?” “Is the author employing the right emotional beats for his audience?” “Is this better than comparable stories in its field?” and so on. This list can go on for pages. So learning to think critically isn’t just about searching for missing words and commas that are out of place, its about studying the piece, understanding the markets, and learning to think about audiences, too. Learning to understand storytelling (critiquing) takes time, and time is a bottleneck. Most of us feel we don’t have enough of it. But thinking deeply about writing helps you educate your own literary sensibilities and tastes, and it helps you discover things that no one else has noticed. Yet, remarkably, I see a lot of talented young writers who refuse to participate in critique groups. They’re afraid to commit themselves to working so hard for such an intangible reward. It’s kind of like people who want to be bodybuilders who refuse to lift weights, or someone who wants to be a concert pianist who refuses to practice. Yes, they might be good pianists, but they’ll never make it to concert quality. Over and over we see that the best writers often have exemplary critique groups. Tolkien and Lewis had the Inklings. Ernest Hemingway exchanged critiques with John Steinbeck and William Faulkner—and all three ended up winning the Nobel Prize. Don’t limit your potential by avoiding the hard work of writing. Join a good critique group. I’ve tried to make it easy for you with Apex (I’ve created a link below.) Back in the 1990s I belonged to one group where I had to drive sixty miles each week for the group. We met in a restaurant and had dinner, so it was a heavy investment of both time and money to go. It was well worth it. But nowadays you don’t have to drive across town or go buy expensive meals—you can join a world-class writing group from your own home. With Apex, you’ll find other writers who are writing consistently, winning awards, getting published, and so on. You’ll find that we have weekly visits with bestselling authors and publishing professionals, along with other exciting programs. But you don’t have to join our group to develop your critical skills. Simply get involved with a few (perhaps three to six writers) and begin your mental workouts now.

***Announcement***

Note: Twenty years ago, Dave taught his legendary 318R writing class at BYU. Some of his students included Brandon Sanderson (Way of Kings), Dan Wells (I am Not a Serial Killer), and Stephenie Meyer (Twilight). Dave’s approach worked well because he put emphasis not just on writing but also on the business of writing, so that an author doesn’t waste years of his or her life by making costly career mistakes. We have a few audit seats still open where you can be a “fly on the wall” when you audit it, but we will be closing registrations soon. See the link below to learn more about the class.

https://mystorydoctor.com/318r-writing-workshop/

death.

death called today, death called to let me know he wanted to be there for me.

death called me because he wanted to visit.

for years and on, i was never afraid to die, but i did not want to answer.

for years and on, i always wanted death to call me and tell me he’d be there for me always, and now that i got it, i send him to ignored messages.

not today, death.

death talked to my parents the other day, parents told me to send him my address so death could finally come. lashed out and told them to “stop making me face my fears”, ran to my room and realized, i am not afraid, i am just not ready and i will never be ready.

days later, i am checking his message that i sent to requests, i am scared to face you, i am scared to face something i know nothing of.

i do not know how to be dead, i do not know how to answer death. do i treat death as if i was never hurt by him? do i treat death as if he did not leave me to live my whole life alone?

i am afraid i lack manners, i am afraid i lack sensibilities, i am afraid of being afraid, i am afraid because i am not ready to face death.

for years and on, i always thought about what it felt like to meet death, to have death be there for me, to have death call me up and say “hey, how are you? how was school today?” but i never really thought about it happening, i never really thought it was possible for Death to be here, for Dad to be here.

i am not afraid, Dad, trust me but

I am not ready.

Snip! Bet this will definitely make me popular. Splash! The mirror does not make it look half bad. Maybe a little bit more work needs to be done. Trim.

Oh no! Looks like I’ve made quite a mess.

No one should see this.

But if they don’t see it, how will they

know?

I feel like I’m drowning in this mess.. It’s all over the room now.

I want this to be the best one yet. The ones before this… they called me a phoney. But it fit me so well!

Somebody gave the clock some hands

And now he loves to tick

Somebody gave the clock a voice

And now he loves to chime

Somebody gave the clock some legs

And now he loves to run

Somebody gave the clock some wings

Feel like you’re stuck in first? Need some help getting your writing into overdrive? Let’s pick up the speed today in…

Switching Gears

A Writing Speed Test

Sometimes as writers, when we give writing advice, we often give advice by telling “How I write” instead of “How to write.” This idea came to me strongly after I spoke on a podcast with the good folks at Writing Excuses.

At one point, Howard Tayler, a cartoonist who writes mainly for the online Schlock Mercenaries mentioned that he found it helpful to do what I’ve heard called “Blast Writing,” where one will sit and just write for fifteen minutes straight without stopping, just to get a thousand words or so on paper.

It’s a technique that I rarely use, but probably ought to try more often. I don’t use it often though because when I do it, I feel like a race-car driver hurtling along on the Salt Flats in Utah, trying to set a land-speed record, barely under control.

But when you’re writing a first draft of a novel, by using this technique you can get good ideas on paper quickly, and you’ll be brainstorming as you do it.

Writing in a Single Draft

My friend Dean Wesley Smith likes to do what we call “Single-Draft Writing,” which is very similar. One of our mutual mentors, Algis Budrys advocated this technique. When authors were typing, they had to learn to focus hard on their work, to laser in, and to type quickly just to pay the bills. Since paper could cost a significant amount of money, by writing only a single draft they saved both on time and paper, so learning to become a single-draft writer was a valuable skill.

I never use that technique. I’ve always found that I want to niggle with my words too much. Once again, I feel like a race-car driver, perhaps in the Indy 500, barreling along at a dangerous pace. Yet this technique works for some people.

On our podcast, my old friend Dan Wells said that he preferred a different method. He likes to tell himself that his work really isn’t important, that the piece that he is writing will probably never be published. In short, he makes his writing sessions “stress free.”

For him, writing is more like a Sunday drive.

The Sunday Drive Writer

Now, once again, this is a technique that I seldom use. Yet it’s a valuable technique. Many writers get stressed out when they write, and stress will dampen your creativity. By using this technique, you free up your creative mind, so that you can allow yourself to make a few mistakes while often finding exciting ways to express yourself.

So I certainly recommend his technique. In fact, I do use this at times when creating what I call “set pieces” for a novel. For example, I can write a little description of a character or a setting, and then just drop it into the novel at the right time. It’s a nice way to brainstorm your project and get something accomplished at the same time.

For me, though, I try to seek a balance most of the time, where I push myself to write high-quality and to do it at what I consider to be a relaxed but reasonable pace. I might think of myself more as a “precision driver,” the kind of person who works driving limousines, hoping to get my customers to their destination quickly and smoothly.That’s the way that I typically work, but sometimes I feel that it’s restrictive. It’s like trying to drive to work in a car that will only go into first gear.

So if you’re having trouble pacing yourself, try switching gears. Perhaps you could start your day by writing a fifteen-minute “blast” where you get ideas on paper. Then time yourself and do some “stress-free” writing using the technique that Dan Wells does, then finish off for another hour to two working to use my precision-driver method.

That’s what I’m going to try this morning.

Happy Writing!

David Farland