Three Inspiring Thoughts on Writing

Before I share my three favorite quotes about writing, I have to twirl a bit over my big news this week. THE TALON OF THE HAWK was nominated for Best Fantasy Romance of 2015 in the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Awards! I'm so honored to be in the company of such amazing writers, many of whom are my very favorites from way back. Such a thrill!

My three favorite quotes about writing.

There is in each of us an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground around it into a swamp. ~Mark Rutherford

I found this quote in the book WALKING ON ALLIGATORS, a book of meditations for writers, by Susan Shaunghnessy, which I bought back in 1993 when I first set my cap to being a writer instead of (or, in addition to, as it turned out) being a scientist. I've come back to this quote over and over, to explain to myself why I get depressed if my breaks from writing are too long. Ye olde swamp. Yes, exactly.

Tons of great quotes in that book - I highly recommend!

Take the donuts!

Okay, if you haven't read Amanda Palmer's THE ART OF ASKING, you won't get this. Also, this is an amazing book for any kind of creative. Maybe for anyone at all! Seriously, this book lit up my life and answered questions I didn't even know I had. Anyway, she explains this so much better than I could, that I'm copying from the book. Some of this might not make sense because she references previous thought threads, but that's all the more reason to read the book!

Thoreau wrote in painstaking detail about how he chose to remove himself from society to live by his own means in a little ten-by-fifteen-foot hand-hewn cabin on the side of a pond. What he left out of Walden, though, was the fact that the land he built on was borrowed from his wealthy neighbor, that his pal Ralph Waldo Emerson had him over for dinner all the time, and that every Sunday, Thoreau’s mother and sister brought him a basket of freshly baked goods for him, including donuts.

The idea of Thoreau gazing thoughtfully over the expanse of transcendental Walden Pond, a bluebird alighting onto his threadbare shoe, all the while eating donuts that his mom brought him just doesn’t jibe with most people’s picture of him as a self-reliant, noble, marrow-sucking back-to-the-woods folk hero. In the book An Underground Education, Richard Zacks declares: Let it be known that Nature Boy went home on weekends to raid the family cookie jar.

Thoreau also lived at Walden for a total of two or three years, but he condensed the book down to a single year, the four seasons, to make the book flow better, to work as a piece of art, and to best reflect his emotional experience.

Taking the donuts is hard for a lot of people.

It’s not the act of taking that’s so difficult, it’s more the fear of what other people are going to think when they see us slaving away at our manuscript about the pure transcendence of nature and the importance of self-reliance and simplicity. While munching on someone else’s donut.

Maybe it comes back to that same old issue: we just can’t see what we do as important enough to merit the help, the love. Try to picture getting angry at Einstein devouring a donut brought to him by his assistant while he sat slaving on the theory of relativity. Try to picture getting angry at Florence Nightingale for snacking on a donut while taking a break from tirelessly helping the sick. It’s difficult.

So, a plea.

To the artists, creators, scientists, nonprofit-runners, librarians, strange-thinkers, start-uppers, and inventors, to all people everywhere who are afraid to accept the help, in whatever form it’s appearing:

Please, take the donuts.

To the guy in my opening band who was too ashamed to go out into the crowd and accept money for his band:

Take the donuts.

To the girl who spent her twenties as a street performer and stripper living on less than $700 a month, who went on to marry a best-selling author whom she loves, unquestioningly, but even that massive love can’t break her unwillingness to accept his financial help, please…

Everybody.

Please.

Just take the fucking donuts.

And my most recent favorite, that I have tacked up next to my desk:

What would you write if you weren't afraid?

This one isn't cited to anyone that I can find. It's interesting because when I mention it to some people, they come right back with "I'm not afraid of anything!" Which is great. More power to them. Other people though, particularly well-established, multi-published authors, nod and say, "Oh, yes." It's not fear precisely, but that works well as a good umbrella term. It's caution. It's those voices of the marketplace whispering that something like it has been done. Or has never been done. It's the comments of critique partners warning that readers won't like something. It's the ever-present doubt in one's own instincts.

Whenever I hesitate on going somewhere in a story, I look a that quote.

And I write as if I'm not afraid.

Five Reasons to Keep Writing

The cholla are starting to come into bloom here. Love seeing the desert pop with the pink and yellow.

So, last week we all did our best to talk ourselves out of writing. Some of the posts were pretty damn funny, too. I particularly liked Linda's and Marcella's.

But what are good reasons to keep writing? Here are mine.

1. Simple logic: continuing to write = producing stories

Okay, it's not a guarantee. But this is kind of like proving a hypothesis. I can be certain of the reverse - if I don't write, then there are no stories. Also, one of those most brilliant aspects of writing - maybe of creativity in general, I don't know - is that the more you do, the more there is. Writing more means I'm able to write more easily. That's the number one reason to write. Writing is an act that opens the gates. Getting that flow is one of the best feelings in the world. Maybe the flow won't happen. It doesn't every time. But it *definitely* won't flow without the act of writing in the first place.

2. Excuse to stalk authors

I've said this before, but one of the best perks of being an author is getting to be friends with people who write the books you love as a reader. The friendships I have with other authors are some of the best ones of my life. Having published books gives you a pass that changes creepy stalking into a professional exchange. Of course, having published books only happens if you keep writing. See #1.

3. Tax-deductible books, free books, early books

 Did I mention books?? Yes, I deduct all of the money I spend on books. I'd buy them anyway, but being an author transforms book buying from indulgence to professional research. It's one of the best gigs ever. Also, my friends give me their books. We trade. If I want to read the next book in a favorite series early, I need only ask. It's amazing and my bookworm younger self have never quite gotten over how sweet it is.

4. Reduced chance of insanity

Writing might make me feel crazy in some ways and at some times. (See last week's post.) But not writing absolutely makes me feel crazy. I can feel it creeping in when I take a break. There's an ideal space of time in there. I take a break between books or revisions, to allow the well to refill. It helps to do this, but I have to do this judiciously. Too long and it's hard to get the flow going again. (See #1.) Worse, once the well has refilled, it begins to overflow, which means I feel like I'm filling up with this stuff that has nowhere to go. I become bloated and stagnant with it. It feels like depression. It might end up there if I let it go too long.

5. Best freaking job in the world

Seriously. It might not be the easiest way to make money. Certainly many writers may never make a whole lot of money. But I find it pretty awesome that I can get paid to write stories. I get to write what I love, play around with ideas and characters, romp through worlds that I create and make be exactly how I want them to be. AND I get money for this??

BEST FREAKING JOB IN THE WORLD!

I'm sorry, I keep thinking of the movie TED.

Ted, the movie, is about a talking child's teddy bear that comes to life and grows with his owner. And their many, often perverse misadventures. It's written for anyone whose mind refuses to leave the gutter. I watched it with two of my siblings. My brother and I enjoyed it, but we equally enjoyed my sister's outraged squawks of indignation.

I laughed myself silly.

But apparently TED talks, this week's subject, is about Technology, Entertainment and Designed, converged. 

I have never even considered giving a TED talk. I did;t know what one was.

What would I talk about?

Not giving up. Not looking to others for your success. Not looking AT others as the guidepost for you success.

I would talk about "I wish I had to the time to write a novel."

I would talk about "I've got a great idea for a story. You could write it and we could share the profits." and why, exactly, that is a gigantic, heaping pile of horse dung.

I would talk about the differences between professionalism and stalking. They are many, they are varied, and they look nothing alike, and yet, there are buffoons out there who confuse them all the time.

I would talk about deadlines and how to keep them (and what to do when you fail to do so).

I would talk about the difference between real professional rates and "for the love" rates.

I would talk about whether or not going to college to learn how to write is a good idea.

I would talk about the business of writing versus the actual act of writing.

I would talk about the uses of conventions.

I would talk about form rejections and how to handle them like an adult.

In short, I would talk about being a writer.

And maybe I'd throw in something about forthcoming projects, like the now recurring episodes of my podcast talkshow with Christopher Golden and Jonathan Maberry, THREE GUYS WITH BEARDS or about my latest short story coming out in Innsmouth Nightmares, edited by Lois Gresh and coming out from PS Publications. Just because I love pretty artwork, I'll show you some of that to go with the anthology.

And I'd probably close by asking you to remember those who served this country so very well and often with their lives this Memorial Day. Because, really, we should remember our heroes, not just the occasional athlete. 

James A. Moore

Why Writers Should Allow Themselves Sick Days

I see a lot of writers on Facebook and Twitter say things like "it might be Sunday, but writers don't get days off." Or "I'm dying of this flu, but I'm on deadline, so I'll be awake all night, writing."

I should amend that. I see genre writers saying these things. Literary types don't seem to talk about looming deadlines and powering through word count in the same way. I suspect this has more to do with what's fashionable in each community - appearing to be too much of an artist to care about deadlines or looking like someone who writes a whole bunch, all the time.

Most writers will agree that we all write at different speeds. Once you've refined your craft and your method, you pretty much write however fast you write. Of course factors like work ethic, discipline, health, competing activities, etc. all play in, but there you are.

Still, it bothers me to see people thinking that "writers don't get days off."

It's kind of like the old joke - "I'm self-employed and, boy, is my boss a bitch!"

I think we have to be careful, those of us in professions or arts where we drive much of the responsibility ourselves, to remember that we are both boss and employee. One of the things I've leaned as I've ascended to more managerial positions in the corporate world, is to take care of my team. I'm careful to tell them when something is not urgent and if they want to leave at 4 on Friday after a 50-hour week? By all means do so! Corporate America has vacation, holidays and sick leave not just because of union mandates - my company is far more generous than strictly required - but because happy, healthy workers are productive ones.

So, this week's topic is whether we can work through being sick. In one of the worst flu seasons to hit the US in at least ten years, maybe more, this is an apropos question and I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone says.

For me? I believe in taking sick leave. I'm a health-nut and into natural healing. I rarely take medications. If I'm sick - or fighting off a bug - my first line of defense is rest, rest, rest. I don't try to work through it anymore. I know, after much experimentation and mounting evidence, that if I do work through the sick, the product shows it. It takes me two or three times as long to write it and it flat isn't as good.

If I take the time to rest up and feel better, then my energy and creativity is there, letting me make up for the lost time.

I have a really great boss.