Rules of Being a Writer 4-8

Well, here are the rest of the ‘rules’ of being a writer—though I’m still not sure ‘rules’ is the best word for them. I’m going to write less underneath each so I can fit all of them in one post.

4.       Let Go of Myths

As Brother Allen told us, there is no cabin on a lake in New England where you will get to sit and write all day on a typewriter. It just doesn’t work that way.

5.      Be Nerdy

Why? Nerds have intense passion for whatever they do. Actually, feel that Geeks have more passion, but whatever. The point still stands; you have to be passionate about what you do. You have to love it. If you don’t love it, you won’t do it, and if you try to make yourself do it, you won’t do it well.

6.      Read

Every good writer has to read. We love words. We love stories. If you want to write well, read that which was well written (say that five times fast). Brother Allen’s advice was to have a list of your 20 favorite living writers (advice I have yet to take). The “living” part is important because that will help you know the world you’re trying to break into a little better. If you only read dead authors, you probably will write like them…and you won’t ever be published.

7.      Accept Criticism

It’s hard to let someone read something you’ve written—especially if they find a lot of problems. I know; I still have to convince myself every time that it’s okay for someone else to read it. But writers need that. We need to let others read our work, and we need them to tear it to pieces. We will never improve if everyone we hand it to says, “Wow, that’s great!” That may stroke our egos, but it doesn’t help us write any better.

8.      Learn the Craft

No one wakes up one day with the ability to write well. It takes time. It’s a long process, never ending, really. The moment you say you’ve learned everything you can learn about writing, you stop progressing and actually get worse. David Higgenbotham, an author/poet who came to visit my school last week, told us something that’s helped me: “Give yourself permission to have really crappy first drafts.” The second time around, learn how to make them better.

Rules of Being a Writer 1-3

Two posts in three days? Stop the presses!

Anyway, I mentioned the other day that I’m in a Creative Writing class this semester. We’re focusing on Fiction (yay!). At the beginning of the semester, my teacher gave us a list of eight things we need to do to be good fiction writers. It’s a pretty awesome list, so I thought I’d share it.

            1.  Have fun

Hmmm…usually that’s the last one in the list. You know: do-all-this-to-write-oh-and-don’t-forget-to-have-fun. So, it being number one definitely draws new attention to it. Brother Allen’s point on this one was that many people seem to think that writing is an arduous process wrought from the depths of a suffering human soul.

Haha, that’s a load of Barnacles. Seriously.

Writing isn’t about being sad and depressed.  Though I do love some Edgar Allen Poe, I don’t want EVERYTHING I read to be like him. Writing and Creating should be a fun thing. If it grates on your very being to write or to even think about writing, you’re probably doing something wrong. “The fun should be bigger than you.” It should be so much fun that you can’t help laughing or screaming to let it out (hyperbole is a wonderful tool, don’t you think). Think of little kids playing outside. They’re having too much fun to hold inside.

            2. Become a Super Spy

As a Super Spy, we have to pay attention to what real people do. When a friend or a roommate reacts to something a certain way, we learn why so that we know how our characters would react. Pick up the little things that people do.

One thing that is most often said about Jane Austin is that she was a careful observer of human nature. As writers, we have to do the same. Sitting in a public place and watching how people act is one of the best exercises a writer can do, in my opinion. Besides that, it’s kinda fun to eavesdrop.

            3. Know why you write

Why do you write? Do you write because you want to tell a story? Do you write because you have these amazing ideas that other people should know about? Do you write because you have to, or else you will explode?

Do you write because you want to be rich? Because you want to write the great American novel? Because you want to be remembered?

Why do you write? Without understanding why you write, you lose something in your writing. Sometimes your reasons change, and that’s fine, but if you don’t know why you’re writing, you may just stop.

There are five more rules he gave us, but I think I’ll stop here for now. These rules are all things I’ve heard before, but they’re the kind of thing that everyone should hear over and over again. We can’t forget them. More about these later, then. 

Well, it's called Epic...

Well, it’s been a while, so I have about a million things I want to write about. Be excited; I have an hour and a half break on Fridays that I will most likely be spending in the Library every week, so I might actually blog more often. I also have a Creative Writing class this semester, so I might have more to write about.

Seeing as I have so much to say, I’ll break it up a bit, so for today, I just want to talk about a book I read yesterday. The book was Epic by Conor Kostick. In this world, violence has been banned and anyone who is accused of violence is exiled.

SPOILER ALERT (if you ever plan on reading it)

The book takes place in a community of former refugees from an extremely violent Earth. In this world, their economy, government and all around society takes place in what is essentially an MMORGP, called Epic. All disputes are settled there. The story goes on about a boy named Erik whose family starts out threatened with relocation, then after his father appears in Epic (which he hasn’t done in 20 years) to fight for their right to stay and also for the community to get more solar panels, it is discovered that his father is an exile, because he once punched a guy who was attempting to hurt the woman who became Erik’s mother.  Erik creates a character with whom he place the game the way it was originally intended to be played: as a game. Then he teams up with his friends to defeat a dragon (apparently an almost unheard of feat, especially if accomplished by children/teenagers) and they become wealthy overnight, as wealth in the game means wealth in the real world. They begin to fight against Central Allocations (the government of the world) to gain Erik’s father back and end up reaching an endgame Self-Destruct button which wipes the game from their computers and essentially destroys their government.

So…The first thing I want to say is who designs an MMO—that was originally intended just to be a game—with a Self-Destruct button?! I realize it was essential to the plot, in the end, but seriously, who would do that? So, the first strike against the story was that it was unrealistic in the sense that no game designer would set up their game to be wiped from memory if someone completes the Epicus Ultima.

Another problem the book had was that it felt more like a string of circumstances than a plot. The author wanted them to fight a dragon, so they fought a dragon. He wanted Erik to get appendicitis, so he did. They went on an ocean journey, met a vampyre (his spelling of the word), and fought in an epic battle against all sorts of evil creatures. Their goals were constantly changing, and that was annoying.

However, I still enjoyed the book. I’m not entirely sure why yet, since there were so many things in it that bugged me. Characters were typical; plot was not well constructed; goals weren’t clear. Yet I enjoyed it. I think it was possibly just one of those books that you get into just to get away. There’s something about reading about someone’s adventures in an RPG that sets you (or me at least) off daydreaming. It’s the sort of story where Mary Sues are allowed to live.

Apparently, there is a sequel to this book called Saga. Will I read it when it comes out? Maybe. It won’t be something I search out, but if I find it, I do have questions. For instance, who was it that Rangok, the Big Bad Guy, murdered? It was mentioned that he killed someone, but never who it was. Also, why was he still afraid, after essentially becoming the most powerful player in the game (and thus the most powerful person in the Real world) of harming real people? I have to wonder.

Oh, yeah…the main character? He didn’t kill the bad guy. The game did.


EDIT: I remember now who the BBG murdered. But I'm not going to say.

In Light and Shadow

I gotta be honest…there’s probably a million and five things I want to talk about, but I keep waiting until “just the right time” to talk about them…that time isn’t getting here. So, I’m going to talk about something I thought about nine or so months ago.

Have you ever envisioned yourself as a character in a book? That’s a stupid question; we all have. I don’t mean in the Mary Sue “I’d do it perfectly and life would be like this” kind of way, but as a real character. All of your traits, flaws, habits, personal sayings, etc. would be demonstrated in this character. Something I realized thinking about this is that I, as a real person, would be completely unbelievable as a character.

For example, one or two characters in a book may have a saying that they have that is weird and off the wall—like the way I use “lightning strikes” instead of “holy cow” or something similar. But rarely do they have multiple sayings: in addition to lightning strikes, I say “barnacles” (which, yes, I stole from SpongeBob Squarepants, but I do say it in real life. All the time, actually). I used to be more likely to call you a lackwit than stupid. Plus, I use many words that most people don’t use in typical conversation (that’s because I’m a geek though).

I also have way more interests that a typical character. Characters who like as many things as I do get confusing and it seems more like the author is just trying to please everyone than actually create a real character. One person isn’t generally just as good in calculus and biology as she is in writing and English. One character isn’t, either.

The goal of a character (a good one, anyway) is for them to seem like a real person, with emotions and goals and passions that drive them. Why is it, then, that real people would make horrible characters? Of course, it might just be me.

The thing is, we only see characters in one aspect of their lives. We only read or write what is important for that point right then. If I were to write a character based on a person (be it myself or anyone else), I wouldn’t actually point out all the traits of that person in the story. They could be there, but the reader would never know unless it was important. If I tried to show every side of that person, it would result in a forced narrative. The person would not make it as a character. You can’t highlight every facet of a gem at the same time; some will be in shadow.

This is something you have to keep in mind even with characters you create. There will be things that people never know about. Don’t mention it unless it’s important, or you are in danger of creating a Mary Sue. Incidentally, this is possibly the greatest Mary Sue test I have ever seen. 

Voice: Let's Not Lose It

Life Update (not that you need it, but whatever): The semester is halfway over. I did not get to go on the Creative Writing Retreat, nor did I finish a submission in time for Irreantum. But I have been able to work on my novel some lately, so that is exciting.

One thing that I’ve been thinking about recently is voice. Voice seems like it can mean a lot of things, but I think it is mostly the way the narrator sounds. You go through and read and can tell which character is talking by the way they say things, who is narrating by the things they notice.

 My novel is written mostly from the viewpoint of one character, but there are many times when other characters tell the story better—or the main character simply isn’t around to tell it. In these cases, I switch points of view, but I’ve noticed that much of the narration sounds the same regardless of who is telling the story.

This is obviously not what I want.

To me, each of my characters is a different person, and some of them, I know better than others. Sometimes, the problem comes in when the characters I don’t know as well sound the same as the ones I do.  Other times, I feel that the characters I do know are acting differently than they would around people they don’t know (like the reader). There are certain things I know about my character Marcus that the reader and most of the other characters don’t know, but because I know them, they show up when he’s narrating, even though he wouldn’t say that. Is this confusing? Probably.

Let me try to explain. This is a character who is very withdrawn, and his narrating style (his voice) should reflect that. The only people he opens up to are the ones he trusts, and that is very few people. The reader isn’t one of them.

How voice is used has a lot to do with how you want characters to come across to readers, the feeling you want to give them. I want my readers to identify most with the main character, so she gets the most “screen time” and lets them the farthest into her mind. Though I sometimes use the other characters, they will allow the reader into their minds at different depths.

How do you write that way? This is the question I’m trying to answer in my own writing. I’m trying to figure out how to have each character sound different. I’m the same person, no matter which of them I’m writing. They have their own personalities, and that should help, but I have to remember who I’m writing. Sometimes, I feel like I’m just a monotonous voice droning on in the background, but it should be lively and draw you in. I guess every writer has their issues, and Marcus is throwing plenty my way. In the long run, however, I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I believe most of voice comes from my knowing each character so well that I can’t forget who I’m writing. Part of that comes from actually having the beginning written down (remember my Storybook Weaver post? I’m still working piecemeal, and the beginning is losing the war for attention), but the best way to do it is just to write, and so I will write. I am a Writer.

It takes over your life...

I am a horrible blogger. It’s been three weeks since I was last on here. I realize that in all likelihood, none of you have noticed. After all, it’s not like I was that steady before.  But, this break has been a result of a few things. Well, one thing in particular, really.

School.

Yeah, everyone uses that excuse, but honestly, it’s a good one.

So, two weeks ago, I spent nearly seventeen hours travelling out here to Idaho. Two planes and a bus with plenty of layover time in between, and absolutely no writing was done. I had intended to blog about the difficulties of writing while travelling, but I think the fact that I ended up not doing it says more than I could have in a blog.

Since then, I’ve been doing school. I have seventeen credits this semester and tons of homework already. Why does it feel like finals have decided to come at the beginning of the semester? My theory is that I just haven’t organized enough to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, but we’ll see.

One of my classes is a YA lit class. It’s mostly a reading class; I have to read 25 YA books by the end of the semester. Cool, isn’t it? It’d be awesome if I had time to read them. I have other work too. Like Biology.

Don’t get me wrong; I love biology. That’s why it’s my minor. It’s just labor intensive.

So, tonight, I’m taking a break from homework (yay for Friday) and doing some fun writing. Writing while in school, especially with all the reading I’m going to be doing, is going to be hard. Last semester, I was thinking I’d be done with my book sometime early this semester.

Now I’m not sure I’ll even get to do it this semester.

I’ll try, of course. But realistically, my personal writing comes after my homework responsibilities. Sometimes I hate being responsible. But, I hate the consequences of not being responsible even more.

However, there may be some opportunities to really work on my writing; there is a Creative Writer’s retreat that I’m going to apply for—if I get an entry in time. I have until May 13, and I’m going to try. It’s only 5-10 double spaced pages, but I want it to be good work. There is also a contest for a publication called Irreantum, which is a Mormon publication. That one has to be about 8500 words, by May 31. Even if I don’t get in to either of these things, it’s good to be getting into the world of having others look at my writing. If I can’t let someone look at short stories, why would I ever let them look at a novel? It’s good practice, at the very least.

Well, here’s hoping school allows me some time to write. After all, I may be a Student now, but always, I am a Writer.

Plotting Music

I suppose I should apologize for not posting last week, but I was busy, so I’m not really apologizing. The semester is over now (with a new one right around the corner), so hopefully I can get back on track.

“Plotting Music, he thought. I need plotting music.” ~Artemis Fowl II, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox.

Have you ever been listening to a song and had an amazing story idea—or idea for a scene—pop into your head? It’s not an uncommon occurrence; I see characters in music all the time. Music affects our creativity. Certain songs can just get us really in to our writing, other songs can distract us from it.

For me personally, I can’t write to music that is too slow, nor can it be too fast or involved. Whatever forces itself to the front of my brain gets my attention, and if the music takes too much thought to listen to, I can’t use it while I’m writing. For this reason, I have a playlist entitled “Plotting Music” in my iTunes. What does in there is music that I know for sure I can write while listening to it, but it’s dynamic enough to stimulate my writing. Certain songs, I may play over and over again while writing a scene because it seems to fit so well. The playlist is a nice thing to have because I don’t have to constantly skip the songs that don’t fit my mood.

Sometimes the songs that inspire me most aren’t in my Plotting Music. I hear a song and think of a character because the song exemplifies that character or the way they’re feeling. I see music videos in my head with the character doing different things, and I come to know that character better. I can’t necessarily write with that music but the thought follows me to my writing.

One example of this is (of all things) a Taylor Swift song. I like listening to her music occasionally, but it gets rather repetitive (I mean; we all know how she writes her songs). This song, however, was one of her different ones. “Change” reminds me of two of my main characters in the novel I’m working on now. I imagine the two of them singing it to each other, each trying to bolster the spirits of the other. The song comes to mind whenever one has to support the other—which happens pretty frequently—but I don’t usually write to it. It’s distracting to have Taylor Swift singing at you when you’re trying to be creative.

(Okay…that was probably a little mean. But honestly, most of her songs are pretty much the same. I might like her better if she branched out a little.)

I like writing to music, but often as not, I write in silence. I just don’t think about turning on the music, especially if there is someone else in the room. I can’t say I find much of a difference between the writing with music and the writing without it, so it doesn’t affect the way I write (which is a good thing). But it does help when the words are slow about coming. Find the right song, and the writing can just flow. Writers need inspiration, and the right music can provide that. I am a Writer.

Literary or fun? How about both?

I suppose I should apologize for not putting something up yesterday, but it’s the end of the semester for me. Hopefully, everyone understands that.

In other news, I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. It was amazing. It was one of those books that at the end, you set it aside for a few minutes and just think. You maybe re-read some of the ending scenes, but mostly, you just think. Wow. If only every book hit you that hard. It was fun to read, and the pages kept turning, but it still made you think.

I was reading some silly online memes earlier today, and I noticed that quite a few of them were dissing fantasy and fiction (especially genre fiction). Some criticized adults who like children’s literature (I happen to be one) and said some rather insulting things about them, which I don’t think are true. They may be for some, I suppose, but not for me.

Anyway! Back to my point. Sometimes people criticize fantasy and sci-fi for not being literary enough. They don’t make fun of people who read it and don’t like people to write it. This bugs me. I know that they aren’t the same as To Kill a Mockingbird, but I still think that some of it, at least, has literary worth. This meme even criticized readers of Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, which is generally held to be a classic.

This doesn’t seem right to me. I have genres I don’t like, but I don’t call people stupid for liking them. In many cases, I think we should be glad that they are reading anything at all.

In any class I’ve had where they try to distinguish literary from genre fiction, plot driven from character driven stories, I always think about the many, many instances that blur the line. Can you really be interested in only the characters without being interested in the plot? I don’t think so. No. Without something happening to them, all you would be seeing is the characters talking to each other. You wouldn’t have any reason to be interested in them.

Can you be interested in the plot without being interested in the characters? Some would say yes, but I think that there needs to be at least one character that you are interested in. Why else would you be interested in the plot? Sure, not every character is well-rounded and 3D, but you have to care about someone. Someone has to change.

The line isn’t as clear-cut as some would think, and it isn’t just plot-driven genre fiction that crosses into literary fiction. I personally think that without the story of Boo Radley, and the Ewells, what would endear us to Scout Finch? Don't get me wrong; I love her, but remember my point. Something has to happen in a story. Characters and plot are hand-in-hand. I recognize that there are different categories. I just wish some people wouldn’t be so stiff about it.

In Andrew Clements’ The School Story (a children’s book—I really don’t understand why adults aren’t supposed to like them), he tells us, “Like all writers, first [Natalie] was a reader.” So today, I am a Writer, but I am also a Reader. And I like reading all kinds of things, both classics AND fantasy. And sometimes, the line can be crossed.

Imagery of Envy

The darkness enveloped her, creating a cocoon that blended with her dark skin. A slight wind tugged at her heavy, black woolen sweater, inviting her to go along with it, to become part of it. But she couldn’t.

Not tonight.

She crept almost silently along in the shadows, draped in blackness from her high-heeled boots and tight black jeans to her “Find the Ninjas” T-shirt and wool sweater. The faintest click from her heels echoed down the alley. Glaring light from streetlamps on the street behind her melted into the orange glow of an alley cat’s eyes, then faded into nothing at all. Her dark brown eyes widened to take in the complete darkness. A glint of moonlight reflected in them for but a moment as the clouds allowed it a peek, revealing the now vertical pupils that rested within.

This is the beginning of a scene I wrote quite a while ago just to practice my descriptions. I was thinking about it because early this week, my best friend asked me to edit a story for her. As I did, I noticed the wonderful way she used simile in her descriptions. She managed to choose just the right one to say exactly what she meant every single time. They weren’t difficult to understand—they weren’t cloistered towards a select group of people, neither did they need to be picked apart in order to make sense. Other descriptors she used—hair that “curled with arrogance,” for instance—were equally clear and understandable. And reading this, the thought came to me.

Why can’t I write like that?

Don’t get me wrong; I believe strongly in my ability to write. However, I feel that my descriptions, on occasion, become boring. Or at least typical, not reaching out to grab you the way that hers do. Every word in her story brought with it the sense of urgency that the story demanded.

(Yes, I’m jealous. I’ll admit it.)

Description is an interesting thing. It has to be subtle enough that readers absorb it without realizing and interesting enough that they won’t be so bored that they skip it. A typical, mundane sort of description is easily forgotten and could slow the pace of the story. But too many similes or metaphors can do the same. How do you get that balance? How can you tell what’s too much? Or too little, as I think is more common in my own writing.

This is something I think about pretty often. It’s all a matter of practice; I know that. Sometimes, though, I wish that I could just do it perfectly. But I can’t. I just have to work at it like everyone else. I am not perfect, and I have to realize that. It is a part of becoming better. I will write and learn as I do. I am a Writer.

Storybook Weaver

First off, I’m sure everybody knows right already about the earthquake in Japan. I am praying for them, and I hope you are too. With the 8.9 earthquake, followed by tsunami and threats of nuclear plants spewing radiation all over the place, they need all the prayers they can get.

I am happy to say that the snag I hit didn’t last very long. It was mostly a matter of skipping the intro and going straight to the important part of the scene. In late, out early, as they say.

I once had a program on the computer called Storybook Weaver. I used it when I was probably seven or eight to write little silly stories about rabbits and crabs and other things like that. I never really thought about why it had the name it did, why it was called Storybook Weaver, but I think I can finally say I understand.

You see, I’m currently at a point in my novel where everything is almost coming together. Not long ago, I had an epiphany which resulted with me finally admitting that a character I had been struggling with was simply unnecessary. He did nothing to advance the plot—not even provide humor (which I’m not very good at, honestly). He was also very bland and two dimensional.

As soon as I decided I would scratch him from the plot, the floodgates of inspiration opened, and many other things became clear. Plotlines met in the middle, other character’s personalities suddenly made themselves clear, and many things that I had written in the beginning were obsolete or needed editing to get them up-to-date.

I knew from experience that if I went back right then and re-wrote those beginning scenes, I would likely never get to the end of the story, so I decided to just pretend that all those things had happened, and keep writing forward.

So, I broke out my Plotting Notebook, pens and sticky notes, and began to see where I was going. The strange thing about this arrangement is that now, everything is in a very volatile state; it doesn’t matter whether I wrote the scene yesterday or a year ago, it is all at once written in sand and set in stone. It has happened, yet maybe it hasn’t, depending on what the plotline calls for.

The end is in sight, but I’m far from it. I feel like I’m taking the pieces of plot and spinning a spider’s web from them. It’s patchwork, piecemeal. I have to make the beginning match with the end, and the end with the beginning. All the guns left on mantelpieces must go off. I must give enough information to keep them interested, yet withhold enough to do the same. So now, I can see that it’s no wonder they call story-telling weaving. I am a Weaver. I am a Writer.

Creative Switch set to..."Off"

Being pretty new to blogging, I know relatively little about it. However, I do know that one thing a blogger ought to be is consistent. For my attempt at this, I will try to post once a week. For the time being, I'll post on Fridays (though this one may already be late).

The main writing issue on my mind at the moment is the feeling of having your creative switch turned off by some unknown force. I hate to talk about writer's block so early in the blog, but everything I have written in the past few days has not been what I want, whether relating to my story or this. There are a few things I do when I get stuck, and the first goes against all conventional wisdom and counsel.

I stop writing.

When I know what I write will just be rewritten--and rewritten 1000 times better I might add--I don't see a reason to force myself to write the horrible refuse that spills forth. The words feel stretched out, like they've been wrung from a dry cloth. They aren't worth writing. I keep the writing that enables me to recognize that I've reached that point, but once I do, I don't keep writing until I know why I'm stuck.

Once I've stopped, I take a step back and look at the problem from several different angles. Is the scene necessary? If it is, is it being told from the best point of view? Is it happening at the right time? Are the right people there? If I can't figure out the answers, or if the answers still don't help me move on, I take a different route.

I draw pictures.

Most of the time my doodles have very little, if anything, to do with what I'm writing. But the problem is there in the back of my mind and I work on it unconsciously. (This is something my Calculus teacher once told me about. If you can't work it out, put it away for a while, and your brain will figure it out. It never really worked for math, but it's good for writing.)

Sometimes, all creative faculties have abandoned me, and I just have to walk away and do something else for a while. Sometimes, that while is a few hours. Sometimes it's days. And a few times, I must admit, it has lasted months. But I always come back, and I continue working on that same thing that originally gave me the problem. Some answer this problem by just coming up with something new, but I want to be an author, and I never would be if I did that. Doing what I do is often looked down on--the "you can't wait for a specific mood" kind of thing--but in my position, I am writing for me. When I have others to please, maybe I'll find a way to get rid of the creative mood swings, but for now, I only have to write for me. I am a Writer. And I have time to wait.

Hey, it's still Friday! (for a few more minutes)

I am a Writer

How long have you been writing? How did you start? Why do you want to be a writer? I tend to ask these questions—though not always directly—to anyone I meet who says they write.

In one of my English classes this semester, I wrote a research paper about the growing trend in writers. Everyone seems to be a writer. Everyone. Even those who you would never have thought to be writers. And though, in my paper, I discovered that the benefits of having more writers around outweigh the inconveniences, when I come across someone who thinks they can write, but really can’t, it annoys me.

I read a webcomic the other day where the characters come across a trucker who writes all different kinds of genre fiction (he’s done romance, fantasy, science fiction, etc.), and everything he writes is garbage. He can’t write to save his life, yet somehow, he’s getting published. This is just a webcomic, but it holds true in real life. There is so much stuff that is extremely badly written. So many people think they can write, but they can’t.

But then, of course, I feel bad and start to wonder, how am I different from them? Am I? I believe I am. I have been writing stories since I was four years old—even before I could read. My stories are not just clichés piled on clichés. While I use some tropes (one story has, heaven forbid, a prophecy), they are not the central themes or plot points to the story. The hero of the prophecy isn’t the main character. The main character is her sister. My stories are more about the interactions between the people.

How do these people think about writing? Do they think about it all the time? Do they struggle over making their writing the best it can possibly be? If they do, they can be real writers. I guess what I’m thinking is, if they don’t have respect for writing, they are not writers. I try to withhold judgment from those who don’t seem writerly until I know whether they really love writing or if they just do it.

Some with the talent don’t think anything of it. It’s like a pianist who says “I’m already good.” As soon as they say that, they stop progressing. They digress, in fact. Writers are the same. Even if you’re good, you have to keep working to be better.

At any rate, I love writing. I want to be the best I can. I know I have to keep working on it. That’s why I’m here. I am a Writer.