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.