Category: Writing Tips

Snowflake People: Backstory to the Rescue

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: Chef Joel]I’ve finished 3 mysteries, with a solid first draft of a fourth and half a draft of another. The first, Through the Fog, was a solo project, a lark, a few years ago. This year, I got more serious with A Long, Hard Look and dug a little deeper for Into the Fog, the second of my foggy Irish mysteries.

The first editing note Tom Bentley sent regarding Into the Fog mentioned that its protagonist sounded a lot like the chap in A Long, Hard Look.

All I could think was, wait ’til he reads anodyne.

All three protagonists (wait; there’s a fourth, a woman) speak with my voice. There are subtle differences, but I’ve made the mistake of allowing my writer’s voice to overwhelm these characters’ individuality.

They’re all too much me. I guess I have so many faces I want to use them all. But that’s confusing for readers.

O woe is me. How to fix?

Tom’s first suggestion sounded familiar. That’s because I’ve been recommending it to my business coaching clients since before I wrote The Commonsense Entrepreneur in 2008.

This is why we hire others: so they can help us see, over here, what we’ve been doing for 6 long years over here.

Write What Who You Know

I’d like to introduce you to Eileen Thomasina Armstrong, 36. (She sure doesn’t like her middle name.) Here are some things you might like to know about her: … more … “Snowflake People: Backstory to the Rescue”

What is Your Writing Goal for Today, for This Project, for Your Life?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: what are you aiming for?]A subtle theme, more a motif, runs through my conversations with authors. When they talk about their writing, there’s one thing they don’t mention:

When it will be done.

There’s a reason this site is named Someday Box. A reason I chose Getting Your Book Out of the Someday Box as the title for that book.

“Someday” is not a goal. Someday is a dream, a vague notion. Sir Ken Robinson tells the story of chatting with a brilliant pianist whose name I can’t remember. Robinson said “I wish I could play like that.”

The pianist said something like, “No, you like the idea of playing like that. If you really wished you could, you’d be doing something about it.”

Do you want to be a writer or do you just like the idea?

… more … “What is Your Writing Goal for Today, for This Project, for Your Life?”

Write Drunk. Edit Sober. Is That Right?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Apparently Wednesday comes a day late this week. Still sorting this new posting schedule. Glad you’re here.

Papa H famously said, “Write drunk. Edit sober.”

Just to be totally clear that I’m not advocating alcohol abuse, the point is that made by Gustave Flaubert in a letter to Gertrude Tennant (her daughter Dorothy married the explorer Henry Stanley.)

Flaubert wrote Soyez réglé dans votre vie et ordinaire comme un bourgeois, afin d’être violent et original dans vos œuvres.

Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

[image: solid old tree in the wild weather]

There is a natural balance between order and chaos. You will have a certain amount of each in life, in your personality, in your art. … more … “Write Drunk. Edit Sober. Is That Right?”

Your Book’s Best Presentation: PubML

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: The Blue Monk]Many authors dream of including audio, video, interactive maps and more in their digital books. Alas, even color photos aren’t supported by all eReaders.

Twenty years into the internet age, how come books don’t live on the web?

Thanks to PubML, today they do.

And it’s going to change digital publishing forever for those of us who love books. … more … “Your Book’s Best Presentation: PubML”

My Free Marketing Community Needs You

Posted on by Joel D Canfield
Though the community never took off I’m leaving this here in the archives.

Last Friday’s semi-cryptic message about Commonsense Zero-Cost DIY Marketing for Authors may have looked familiar because I’ve mentioned it before.

The book is on hold while I convince myself I have something to add to the most excellent Write. Publish. Repeat.

In the meantime, how about we all band together and share what we know in a friendly safe community?

Pop over to the Commonsense Zero-Cost DIY Marketing for Authors forum and if it looks helpful and interesting, join us. Share and learn and the rising tide lifts all our boats.

Your Unconscious is Not a Terrorist. You Are Allowed to Negotiate.

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Preservation of life is your unconscious mind’s primary function. Beyond breath and hunger it uses another tool to keep you alive: alertness to danger.

Because your unconscious is an ethereal non-physical entity, non-physical threats weigh the same as the physical. Whether the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming train or a painful memory, the instinctive response is avoidance. Run from danger; that’s what your unconscious does. Most of the time, it’s a good bodyguard.

You’ve seen it in a movie or TV show: protected VIP convinces overzealous bodyguard to allow some latitude, provided safeguards are in place. Sure, kid, you can go to the zoo, but we’ll have a tracking device in your shoe and men in black at every gate.

Your unconscious is a bodyguard trying to protect you, not a terrorist trying to take you down.

[image: a conversation with your unconscious]

What if you could negotiate some free time, give your bodyguard the morning off so you could write from your heart, pouring it all out, wheat and chaff together, spilling some of that internal truth onto the page? What if, for a little while, you made your unconscious feel safe, so it would stay out of the way while you go on a hot date with a great scene for your novel?

You can. Here’s how. … more … “Your Unconscious is Not a Terrorist. You Are Allowed to Negotiate.”

Macabre Dance with Your Unconscious

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Have you ever done something, or thought something, you’re ashamed of?

Uncomfortable as it is, dredge up that memory. We’ll be using it for today’s exercise.

The purpose of our experiment is to demonstrate the effect on our conscious when we try to write something our unconscious doesn’t want written.

Find a place you feel safe. Sit by the fire, if you can, or if that’s not possible, have a shredder under your desk. You’ll want access to methods of rapid complete destruction.

Are you sitting uncomfortably? Good. Let’s begin.

[image: this is where the wicked writing goes]

… more … “Macabre Dance with Your Unconscious”

Where Art Comes From When You Don’t Know Where It Comes From

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: fear needles us]Sometimes art is ground out one step at a time. I’ve done that, and even produced things I’m proud of that way.

Sometimes, art spurts out like mustard from the sun-stricken picnic table. When this happens to me, it always produces something I love.

Once we have the basic skills, writing is a combination of persistence and getting out of your own way. More precisely, getting your conscious, the prefrontal cortex which usually drives the bus; er, your brain, out of the way of your unconscious, including the limbic system where your emotions live, the amygdala where your fears live, and other scary medical terms where other important truths hide out.

To be sure, it is the job of our conscious mind to navigate, to step in when unconsciousness won’t do.

For a writer, that stage is editing, not writing. … more … “Where Art Comes From When You Don’t Know Where It Comes From”

Author Entrepreneur: Eight Essentials to Make Writing Pay the Bills by Pat Fitzpatrick

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

[image: Pat Fitzpatrick] Pat Fitzpatrick(Somehow this draft never got posted. Even though the linked article is 2 months old, it is excellent, well worth your time.

8 practical tips on making the transition from working for a living to writing for a living. Yes, that’s a joke. The article is not. Pat Fitzpatrick guest writing on Joanna Penn’s blog.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Have a Decision to Make

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

What about pausing when the writing gets hard? Ah; this is a place for nice judgment and some brain science.

[image: mind the mind]When a mental project such as solving a puzzle or overcoming a design challenge becomes difficult, there are two options: push through, or take a break to allow your unconscious to gnaw on the problem without your pesky conscious mind interfering.

How does one know when to do which?

… more … “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Have a Decision to Make”