Writing Communities - Fowcs and Mowcs

I was recently invited to join a free online writing community (fowc) by a fellow writer who I know well. And I joined. And overall the experience has been positive so far.

I've also been a part of a membership online writing community (mowc, the kind you pay for monthly) for almost a year and a half.

But I'm still skeptical. How come I don't hear about any bestselling authors who use fowcs or mowcs? Are they just a big time sink? Will they actually help improve my writing?

I don't know the answers, but I have a few thoughts.

1. Online writing communities will ALWAYS sound like a great, wonderful idea.

2. Fowcs tend to be more about the passion of writing, which I like, and less about showmanship, competitions, and elitism.

3. Mowcs are great at keeping freeloaders and inactive people from cluttering things up.

4. Whether a fowc or a mowc, I think any online writing community (owc) ought to encourage as much writing as possible, instead of begging for reviews.

5. What's with this whole "We have our own currency here" thing? It's never made sense to me why an artificial currency has to be involved. I don't want people leaving a review of my writing just because they get 30 golden review bucks to do so. I want them to read it and leave a review because they like the story, or like me as an author. Otherwise I get the one-liner review: "I thought it was good and compelling." I'm not looking for blurbs. I'm looking for perspective.

6. One thing OWCs are always good for is a self-confidence boost. As long as you can ignore any negative comments that come through, there are usually a lot of smiling ones to look at.

Does anyone have an opinion about OWCs, FOWCs, or MOWCs? Has anyone found an online community that has helped them get a book written or published?

Growing your story

With all the advice out there on how to organize plot lines, structure outlines, and revise first drafts, I have found very little that talks about how to think about your story.

Every advice I've ever read or received on how to outline or organize story material assumes I already have material stored up in my mind. It assumes I already have a mess that needs to be organized. But too often I skip the step that no one has ever told me to do: think.

Someone asked me recently if I had any ideas on how to move bare conceptions and single scenes forward into something like a story. I have a lot of what I call snippets or stubs of stories. A scene, a conversation, a witty and elegant description, or an idea for a unique character. These are all little tiny seeds of a story.

I find I need to plant those seeds by writing down what I have. But I have to let them grow on their own by just walking away from the keyboard. A snippet might remain a snippet for weeks or even months before it's grown enough in my mind. But during that time, my thoughts will return to it while I'm driving or waiting in line, and while I think about it, it just grows.

Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, once described being a writer as someone who sits around in their underwear and gets paid a dollar for doing so. Well, I don't sit around in my underwear, but I do take an awful lot of time to just think about my story. Do outlines and structures and arches and character profiles help? Yes. But not so much as to carry the entire burden of story-growing on their shoulders.

To rephrase the extended metaphor:

Plant the seed of a story by putting it on paper. Your mind is the soil. Let its roots grow deep and long before it pokes out over the surface., unprotected where anything might happen to it.

When it grows, encourage it to come up out of the dirt and reach for the sunlight. Add branch by branch, leaf by leaf, letting every aspect of it grow inside your mind until its ready to be put to paper.

Of course, even before all of this you must ask yourself what kind of tree do you want to plant? Is the purpose of your story to block wind? Farmers often use trees to shelter their crops from the wind. Are you writing your story to shelter other ideas from getting blown away?

Or perhaps you want to plant a tree for shade: Simple, relaxing, easy to take care of. Something that doesn't require a lot of effort to enjoy. Something that can be read easily. (Commercial or Mainstream fiction)

You could plant a tree for its fruit. Something that will directly feed the masses, or even just your own appetite. Something that is almost literally food for thought. (Literary works, etc.)

The story might need to be planted for use later on as lumber. I mean, wouldn't you love an author who wrote a book so rich and accessible that you could just go up to it with an ax and carry away solid ideas to use in your own life? (Self-help)

Or maybe you just want something aesthetically pleasing to make that everyday landscape perfect. (Slice of Life)

Do you want a tall tree or a short tree? A wide one, or a thin one? Do you have space restrictions like power lines, word count maximums, or even minimum word counts? Do you want a tree for its flowers, something thats beautiful for the season you are in right now, or that your readers are in, or that the country is in? (Political, current issues, etc.)

Or maybe you're planting an exotic tree, and hoping your green thumb will nurture it in an environment where it's not really meant to grow. Something that's completely outside its normal sphere. (Sci-Fi and Fantasy)

Or maybe you want to plant an Evergreen, something that won't change with the seasons, will always be a predictable height and shape, and has a pleasant smell. (? Ideas for what this would be?)

I could go on and on.

And yes, sometimes our stories do contract dutch elm disease and have to be cut down and killed. Sometimes they get struck by lightning and the entire growth structure of one limb of plot gets cut off and it changes the story forever. Sometimes they catch fire. Sometimes our entire forest of stories might catch fire. (This is very sad when it happens. I think it's called writer's block.)

Or maybe you're just not sure what your tree is because it changes from day to day. Maybe it looks more like its just going to be a bush or a weed.

In any case, I think the most important step in getting a story from conception to fruition is thought. Pure, long, hard and deep thought. It's okay to sit around in your house, (in your underwear if you must,) and just think as a part of the process.

I'm tempted to go into what happens during the different seasons to our forest of novel ideas, but I'll leave that up to you.

Metaphor of the Month Assignment: (Finally!)

Describe your current WIP (work in progress) in a metaphor like it's a tree. What are its aspects? Why are you growing it? In what stage of growth is it in?

Example:

My WIP is a willow tree. I'm not exactly sure why I'm growing it. It's really big, and its plot lines hang way down low to the ground so the reader can see how beautiful and magnificent it is. It drapes everywhere, offering accessibility to the very edge of its growth, the tips of the branches, where new things are always coming out. They're not way up high and hard to reach like other trees. I want my readers to be able to duck inside its canopy of branches for a little while and just enjoy its complexity, but not be alienated by it. I guess perhaps I'm growing it for aesthetic purposes. It's a beautiful tree, and it's unusual enough to be noticed in a front yard, but not so unusual as to be called exotic. I like it that way. It will draw attention to itself without making the reader feel like they are encountering something completely foreign.

Strong Characters

In the comments last week Cindy mentioned that it not only takes the correct motivation behind a character's moves to make a story work, but it just plain takes strong characters.

When you read, what makes a good character?

The other day, I found myself watching a few favorite tv shows over again simply because I love seeing the characters in action. For me, it doesn't matter if my favorite law enforcement people are in law enforcement, the medical field, or homeless shelters. I know the characters would be the same and I would still enjoy their interactions.

With my story this week, I'm going to be focusing on how to make my characters the kind of characters you would want to read in any book, regardless of which setting they're in. I think strong characterization not only comes from knowing a person's motivation, but also from how they interact with each other. Not that it needs to turn into a soap opera of any kind, but who the person is can be shown through how he/she reacts to others.

I guess what I really mean is any character I create always has more to him/her than I'm aware of. I make assumptions about them that can't be put into words. So when I put my characters in different situations, or plug in other people to their life, the things I wasn't aware of come out.

It's all there. I just need to create a way to let my characters show it.

Character Motivation

(Eek! It's Tuesday! I forgot to post yesterday!)

I've been working on the outline to my story using a combination of the snowflake method and the phase drafting method and it's been a lot of fun. Even though I've already written the first draft of the story, the outline is helping me to flesh out characters and scenes that are wimpy, and is drawing my attention to plot holes I didn't see before.

What I've discovered: A character's motivation is EVERYTHING! You can't just have a character do what you want them to do without having an explanation as to why they would do such a thing. Outlining helps me to see further ahead. If there's an action that's essential to the plot, I need to make sure whatever character is going to perform that action has the kind of personality and motivation to take that action.

For instance, in my story the villain ends up becoming extremely powerful, escapes, and then purposefully performs an action that will kill him within 48 hours. I had to figure out a motivation for him to do all of these things.

Motivation for....

1. becoming extremely powerful: He's trapped on a planet and needs the power to get back home, thus he's highly motivated to gain power, even if it means becoming a murderer.

2. escaping: It's not how he wanted to leave, but he is strongly motivated by the group of law enforcement ninjas who are going to kill him if he doesn't leave his entire plan unfinished and left behind.

3. drinking poison: This is the most complex motivation of them all. There are several reasons he's motivated to do this, but the biggest is that he's a sociopath who unwaveringly has to accomplish his goal at any cost. He does this. As soon as his goal is accomplished, he doesn't care anymore. For him, the completion of the goal is what mattered more than getting home.

Now, if I were to create such a villain and have him be even keel emotionally, or unflappable, and suddenly show that he has an obsession with completing goals, it wouldn't work. But because I know what his final motivation will be, I can plant seeds early on about how the villain has a deep-seated need to complete goals regardless of any consequences or cost.

I'm hoping the reader will get to the end and be surprised, but still be able to say "I should've known that was coming."

Blog Culling

I'm back in!

Into reading blogs and such that is. I stopped bothering about my RSS reader sometime mid-November because of NaNoWriMo. Then Christmas hit. And it took me this long to open that scary program and sift through the 600+ blog entries I had missed.

I also decided to allow myself 20 (only 20?!) blogs that I read regularly. This meant I had to get rid of 73 blogs. You can imagine why I had to limit my intake.

How do you balance intake of internet stuff with writing? Do you give yourself limits? Do you find that other people's blogs help you write?

Since I'm back into blog reading now, I feel a lot more connected to the interwebz and will probably be posting more regularly. I've been trying to have a loose schedule of posting every Monday.

Keep writing everyone!

NaNoWriMo is around the bend! And so is Cake. No lie.

I'm officially registered for NaNoWriMo this year which happens in November. My name is leolewis if anyone wants to add me as a buddy.

What is NaNoWriMo? Check out the link. It's a challenge where many writers across the globe attempt to write a book in an entire month. (A book being defined as 50,000 words. In reality, that's a pretty short book, but hey, we're doing it in a month.)

I feel I am more prepared now than last year (which was my first try). In 2008 I made it to 30,000 words, 10,000 of those being written on the last day in November over a period of 9 hours straight. My butt was pretty sore after that.

But this year I've already started outlining, using a method called Phrase Drafting. I'm combining it a little bit with the Snowflake method. We'll see how it works.

Does anyone have experience with either of these methods? Do they work for you? Don't work? What does work for you?

Ok, now it's off to bed to dream about my wonderful characters while I can. I'm sure by the time November blows over I'll be sick of them.

MDA:

What's a metaphor for NaNoWriMo?

Highlight the text to see my example if you need inspiration:

Example: NaNoWriMo is a piece of cake.

It sits there at the end of the dinner table just waiting to be eaten. It promises me it will be easy to eat. But I have to get through my vegetables in a hurry before I can even take a bite. As I shovel peas into my mouth, I gag. As I look at the steamy bowl of characters before me, knowing my mother will make me eat some of those too, I get a little queasy. Then I remember the cake, and I make myself be more patient. Soon my mother is putting really tough and dry plot meat onto my plate. It's tough to chew. I try to wash it down with some setting, but it doesn't help. Finally, after three hours of arguing with my mother about how many vegetables I have to eat, and asking if I really have to clean my plate, I get to bite into that delicious piece of raspberry-I-finished-neener-neener-inner-critic-cheese cake.

Hey everyone.

I got chosen to guest post over at Rachelle Gardner's blog! How exciting! I'm going to be knee deep in elbow grease to polish my guest post as well as it can get, and then I'll post it here.

Also, check out a new blog resource for writers: Invisible Ink. It's about the often unseen connection between chemistry and writing and is posted by my beautiful cousin and fellow writer Sarah. She's an undergrad student in Chemistry and will do her best to answer any questions you have about chemistry related to writing.

Seriously, go check it out! Even if you don't have chemistry questions, she's funny to read. (I mean that in a good way, Sarah! You're an adorable nut!)

Audio Writing

Last night I decided to do something different with my writing.

I recorded myself reading the first chapter out loud. It was educational to say the least.

I've heard it said that to really see where your story needs improvement, you should read it out loud. It's so true. I did different voices for the characters and everything and it still sounded like less than publishing quality.

Things I learned from this exercise:

1. I read out loud too fast. It's hard to have patience and not get nervous when reading for the first time.

2. My first draft and second draft versions both have awkward sentences. They are ugly to say and ugly to hear. Gotta clean those up.

3. Things I thought were implied for my characters really weren't all that obvious and I need to throw a little extra time into character description.

4. I have a greater respect for audio books and the people whose voices are recorded in them. I realize now just how good they are.

5. There are lots of cool sound effects on my computer that make me want to add in extra scenes to my story just so I can use them.

Because of this exercise, I thought of how cool it would be to record myself thinking out loud in the car. My commute could become an hour long writing session if I worked hard at it. It would probably improve my story telling abilities as well since I'd be saying things on the spot and wouldn't be able to delete or edit what I just said. It's a thought, anyway. I might try it on my way home tonight.

Writing/Critique Groups

Hey all!

I was reading CKHB's blog about critique groups and it brought me back to an early memory.

I was homeschooled by my mom right up until I went to college and she was awesome at getting us kids groups of friends to hang out with. She started a homeschool co-op, was head of the homeschool band, and even started a homeschool writer's group for me and my brothers.

It was simply called Writing Club and every child was to bring something to the group that met once a month that they had written. We met in various places. Sometimes in my Grandma's church, sometimes in a Library. There was one time we met in a weird building I don't know the name of. It was awesome. There were bookshelves everywhere and tables in the middle and the building was almost in the middle of a gorgeous park so when we were done, I remember going outside and playing. I was really young, like 7 or 8 at the time.

Every month I would scramble to come up with something to share. For the first few times, I wrote a few short (very short!) stories and read them. But then I procrastinated and when the time came, I had nothing written and would just have to listen to everyone else read their stories. I thought everyone else wrote so wonderfully, I was kind of shy to share my own writing.

There was this one girl who wrote a story that made all the moms laugh. And it was long enough that she had to continue it from month to month. I was amazed. The concept of writing something longer than two pages was born in my world, and the next month I had an 8 page, single spaced story that I had poured my heart into.

As luck would have it, the morning before I was supposed to share our printer broke and I only managed to copy 5 of the 8 pages down by hand to share with everyone. I still have those pages and when I read over them now, I cringe at how horribly written it is, yet I smile at how ridiculous I was back then.

It was only after the Writing Club disbanded that I realized I wanted to be a writer. (Go figure.)

Ever since then, I've wished I could have another Writing Club and it sounds like critique groups are fairly close to that.

Many thanks to my wonderful and dear mother who took the time to organize such a club. She probably didn't know it at the time (especially those months I never wrote anything to bring), but they were one of the funnest things we did that year, and I learned a lot about writing. It planted a seed.

All this reminiscing to say that if anyone wants to start a critique group with me, we should talk. Leave a comment below and I'll get things started.

I have a wonderful critique buddy already, but I'd like to get more people's ideas too. My crit buddy and beautiful cousin Sarah. Sarah is awesome. There's no one like her.

Ok, this blog is getting a little bit away from metaphors but that's ok for now. There are no emergencies.........yet.

In response to publishing myths...

(In response to Rachelle Gardner's recent post, I posted a comment that turned out to be rather long, though relevant. Figured it would do better as a blog post than a comment.)

Remember the movie The Pursuit of Happyness? The guy breaks all the rules about job interviews, shows up "dressed like a garbage man" and still gets the job. None of us, I think, would ever risk a possible job opportunity by dressing like a garbage man and showing up on purpose. But sometimes you just can't help it. I know I don't want to risk a possible agent or publisher liking my book by presenting them with a garbage man query. (No offense to garbage men! You guys are awesome! It's just a stereotype. Please still take my garbage out on Friday!) But you know, I suspect there are writers out there who have circumstances that have kept them from polishing their queries, their first pages, or toning down their word counts. Is it still possible for them to get published even if they disobey all the rules? Yes. But do I want to be one of those people if I can help it? No.

I have never known anyone to get upset about a query letter or manuscript rejection because they thought the agent or publisher was being unfair...at least in person. I've read about several people who get upset online though, and I don't understand why.

Just keep your head about you, and it will serve you well.

Week night Write-a-thon

Last week my cousin and I had a write-a-thon at Caribou. It was awesome. I highly suggest this if anyone is priveleged enough to have such a wonderful cousin and fellow writer as I do. First, it's helpful for me to have someone next to me who is also writing to keep me motivated and accountable. There were times I would rather have surfed the net or tweeted away the hours because I was working on a difficult scene. But because she was there, I pushed through it. (BTW, it especially helps if they can see your computer screen so they know if you're writing or not.)

Also, there were countless times when I needed a name for something, needed a synonym, or just an extra brain to pop out some ideas. We went back and forth asking for words, definitions, etc. "What's someone called who's in charge of a school but sounds more medieval-like than super-intendant?" (Provost is the word we ended up with for that one.)

And, of course, every now and then we ask each other for a metaphor for something. It's always tons of fun because at this point, we can either be serious or say something hilarious.

Charged up and ready to go

It's time to get into Dodge for me....no, that's not a typo, it's my fiance's silly pun about my new car.

I now have a 2008 Dodge Charger which is very nice. Not only can I listen to audio books now, but I can listen to them with the windows up in my car because I have air conditioning again. Yay! I'm so glad I don't have to listen to Mrs. Bennett's voice blaring at top volume along the freeway.

My cousin and fellow writer Sarah and I are meeting tonight to have a write-a-thon. In case you missed that, the mathematic breakdown goes like this: Coffee shop + Cousins + writing = awesomeness.

My WIP is a science fiction/fantasy novel. I just completed the first draft, refined the outline, and wrote the opening scene. Tonight I'll get to work on expanding the opening scene, and hopefully be able to fill in a few plot holes in the outline.

Side note: I own a 2008 Dodge Charger that's a sparkly navy blue. Any ideas what I should name it? Extra brownie points if the name comes from something having to do with Lord of the Rings or Narnia.

Being Reachable

I read a blog post by Janet Reid about being reachable on the internet in case an interested agent or publisher or someone important wants to contact you.

So I googled my name to see what I could find. Then I realized I needed to sign out of facebook, amazon, and a lot of other things to make the search more honest. After all, a stranger wouldn't be able to see my full facebook page.

To my surprise, I found an article I had been interviewed for without even knowing it. Cool.

I was also talking to my writing friend cousin about this blog. She said she thinks I've gotten bogged down by trying to make it just about metaphors. So I'm going to cut that out.

I'll still post about metaphors when it comes naturally, but I think once I get the main information up here for people to reference to, posting about writing, publishing, and other stuff will be ok too.

Working hard and hardly working

Hey.

Been busy writing so haven't had much time to post here. After the JuJu challenge I'd like to say I'll have more time to post but to be honest, I kind of hope this writing grove stays with me.

JuJu is a personal challenge inspired by some bloggers and writers I know. My goal, abstractly is to write a significant amount during June and July. More concretely, I'd like to at least write 42,000 by the end of this two month span. 60,000 would be better and I would be satisfied at that. I would be ecstatically happy if I could reach 100,000, meaning 50,000 in each month, just like NaNoWriMo, but I'm going to take it one day at a time, and shoot for 1,000 words per day.

MDA:

I've been listening to a podcast novel lately by J.C. Hutchins titled "Seventh Son" (you can find it on www.podiobooks.com) and he uses a lot of metaphors to add to his descriptions. The whole book is like listening to poetry. At times it's a little heavy, and other times it draws me right in.

When you write, do you use metaphors a lot? What do you use them for? Do you think they can be used too much?

The assignment today is to come up with a metaphor and use it in your writing, then tell me how you used it. And if you want to, why you used it.

For example, this is one I used this past week as a description which also indicates to the reader the character's attitude toward the place:

[The psychiatric hospital's] long corridors stood with open doors looking like mouths or catacombs. He couldn’t decide which.