Exit music (For a blog)

I’ve really enjoyed working on “The Anatomy...” for the months I have. It’s been fun developing a book online; I’ve met some great people, I’ve grown as a writer, and I’ve learned a great deal.

The Community of bloggers has be a constant source of courage and inspiration for me. It’s an experience I am not leaving behind, but coming back to in due time.

Life can throw some heavy curve balls at you. I’m proud of the fact that I posted every page I have without my own internet connection, from public libraries, and internet café’s; but this is just a sign of my current poverty.

Some time ago I threw down and decided to live life on my times- in doing this, I made several errors of judgment, each forcing me to live a more and more frugal lifestyle, which is not what I really want- a little bit of comfort goes a long way.

The clean up I’m indulging in still affords me space to write- space to write, but not to dedicate the time I would like to to “The Anatomy…” Rather than doing many things poorly, I’ve decided it best to get my lifestyle back to where I want it and then resume publishing “The Anatomy…,”

I’ll be back sometime, just not soon, but I’ll still be around.

Thanks to all the people who supported, advised and helped me; thanks to all those who commented on posts and encouraged my strange project. Keep blogging, keep writing and keep dreaming of worlds undreamed.

Thanks

Tom.

Not one second less

Do not approach a story as a mathematical formula. Avoid ideas that a story is a series of separate elements. A poem is not made up like a batch of scones.

Story is a stream rippling over rocks and not easy to control without impeding its flow.

Don’t be afraid of rewrites.

It’s OK. Successive drafts is how to polish ideas into story.

A piece of string is exactly twice as long as it is from one end to its center. It’s much more troublesome to ask how long it takes to write a story.

It simply takes as long as it takes.

You’re not competing with anyone- no one else will ever write quite the same story as you can.

This is your great strength.

The difficult is simple

Tying your shoes is simple, isn’t it?

Write down how to tie your shoes, make it a perfect, useful description.

It’s not easy?

Someone would have explained how to tie your shoes first and walked you through it many times.

This does not explain why you find it so easy to tie your shoes, and yet so hard to explain.

No other teacher can take the place of experience. We learn best by doing.

Imagine what would happen if you never learned to tie your shoes and had to invent your own knot? There would be many failures.

Experience will teach you the practice; practice often

Teachers give you tools to use to gain experience; practice what they teach.

Dedication will grant you ability; this is your reward for hard practice.

Ask no more of practice.

Strong teachers

There is much we have to learn from and about writing.

You don’t need to buy every text book on the subject. You would do well with just a dictionary and “The Elements of style” By William Strunk Jr and EB White.

Most of your text books are much more enjoyable.

John Steinbeck’s works, anything by Banana Yosihmoto; Chuck Palahniuk to Jane Austin, the libraries of the world are your teachers.

The smell of roast cooking on a cold night, the sound of leaves blown by the wind, and the elderly couple whose affection touches your heart; these are all mighty teachers.

All the things you read, all the things you sense, take them and turn them over and about in your minds eye.

Learn what things are from your point of view.

Read a lot, and write a lot; there is much writing will teach you about the world.

Entering the city with bliss bestowing hands

The responsibility of the writer is not limited to writing, editing and, polishing the story. The writer’s purpose is to get the story out to people.

You don’t have to publish; you don’t have to show your book to anyone, but if you like of what you’ve done, you should seek a publisher.

Remember, this is a story that you believed in enough to spend hundreds of hours writing and editing; it’s a story you’d like to see others read.

There are options when it comes to publishing. Choose what suits you; no matter what you do from this point you’ve achieved a great thing.

Just believe in the story. This story will be something of yourself, but your greater self, and shared with others.

This is a powerful gift.

Returning to the origin, back to the source.

After people have read what you’ve written, your worst fear is faced and overcome. If people like it, they tell you. If people don’t like it, they lie to you, and tell you they like it.

Your friends will share it with others.

Your story is no longer a set of pages you have written and called a book. It is, once again, pure story and living where it should- in other people’s minds.

The more people talk about your story, the better you will have told the story.

Sharing a story with others is granting it life. A writer must bring stories to life.

The cow and the man, both gone out of sight

There comes a time when you are done with editing. You will know when that time, and you must make a committed decision.

This doesn’t mean you can’t make small typographical changes, but it means it’s time to let the story out of the door.

Hand out several copies to the two types of friends you have; the ones who will tell you the truth warts and all, and the ones who will tell you pleasant lies.

Listen to what your truth speaking friends say. Think about what they’ve said from the story’s point of view; you’ll find their changes stick.

Listen to your friends who tell you your novel is a best seller and feel good.

The two combined are your co-editors- they will tell you what is great about your story, and what needs work.

Listen.

The cow forgotten, leaving the man alone

When you are editing be dispassionate- Natalie Goldman calls it “Samurai mode” in her book “Writing down the bones”

Eliminate all unnecessary words.

Your editing pen, is a sword of life. You cut that which harms the story; you cut that which obscures it; you are its liberator and protector.

But you will not see the story.

The story will be invisible as you tighten sentences and eliminate word madness; you will be aware of it, but not conscious.

You’re still working on the story, but in editing weighing one word, then one sentence at a time, eclipses other concerns; your story will well survive the pruning.

Riding home on the cows back

In the second redraft, the story will be apparent.

The editing will not be complete. You have story, but you must bring it out into the world properly.

Write to be read.

Remove all the punctuation and grammatical mistakes.

Make things clear; plot is not the act of straightening out poor story telling in earlier chapters – Jack-in-the-box twists added later are no asset.

Try reading out aloud- our minds have a way of twisting what we read to make sense of things. By saying it aloud, you let yourself her from an outside angle, what you’ve written.

This is just polish though- no amount of editing can revive a dead story.

Unless you’ve written a text book people expect to find a living story.

Herding the cow

The first draft will never be perfect; a rough draft does not make a marketable product.

There will be typing mistakes, grammatical train wrecks, unnecessary words, and misshapen ambiguities.

It’s okay to have these in the rough draft. If you don’t find these in the rough draft you’re not reading your work back carefully enough.

Get some distance between yourself and the story before you read it back- say a minimum of six weeks, lest you inadvertently maim it with over zealous editing.

The first redraft will be the most drastic in terms of what you cut away, and what you change. Don’t be afraid of beating the story into shape, when you see it with fresh eyes.

There will be things to change, there will be things you shouldn’t.

Good editing relies on the ability to distinguish between the two.

Catching the cow

Listening and writing is not enough. You have to listen, and write, and get the story down on the page.

All of the story, intact and whole; a rough draft.

As you are writing, let the characters take the deviations they need to make the story happen.

A detail or an episode might seem superfluous, but it is much easier to edit things out than to add solid detail and maintain a consistent connection.

Story and character develop together, and it is very hard to add tracts of material to a draft.

Better to let your pen run wild and write it all down as it comes than try to recapture that spirit.

The story has to be complete; you can’t call it a rough draft with any part of the story missing.

Seeing The Cow

Ignore the first page of the first draft. It won’t be the story and it won’t describe what you see in the story.

Consider your first draft getting to know the characters.

As you write chapter after chapter after chapter, things will change. Characters become people you live with on the page.

The character's voice will come through stronger, their actions will become more authentic.

You do have to listen to them though, and you do have to watch what they do.

Let that character live. If they do something unexpected, do not berate them, or beat them down; work with them, record their lives.

The quality of your watching and listening determines the quality of the transmission between the story and the page; you are the medium, perfect yourself.

Seeing traces of the cow

When you begin, the story will be a dead thing, an idea.

“The man who could not eat the color red.”

This is all it will be. You’ll have this idea, and many others.

“The fish that feel in love with the moon,” “A rainy night homeless in Capetown,” “The man who could not eat the color red,” “A life of thirteen years in a one foot by six inch glass tank,” “The sound of bells on a lake only dreamed,”

Some of these ides will seem good. Some of these ideas will seem bad, but they are all equivalent; mere ideas.

None will grab you immediately and scream, “I’m a Vogel winner!” but there will be some that appeal to you more than others.

When you are looking, all stories are equal; choose one you like, there is no limit to what that story can contain.

Looking for the cow

It's hard to believe you could come up with a story so fascinating that you could write one hundred thousand words in its telling.

You’ll think of many other stories other people have written.

Maybe you'll have ashamedly thought, “What if I just take this story, and bend it like so”

You might think on abandoning writing.

Don't worry, you won’t come through with the story straight away. You will have tiny idea bursts that your brain swallows as fast as they appear.

These go into the vat of your mind and are stewed until little ideas start to congeal into a story.

This story is made up of hundreds of little events and circumstances; one hundred thousand words wont seem enough.

Wrap these circumstances, people, and events- these little ideas- up in an overall story. Any story you like, just tell it well.

Breathing life into characters

Leave all the pretending to the page, but when you pretend, pretend earnestly.

If your character is an outlaw motorcyclist, don’t affect a different voice and take on some bravado.

As you are writing try to understand the character's life, what they feel, why they feel the way they do, and why it comes across the way it does.

Experience things with the character. Don’t judge them; let their living inform your story.

You are God to their Adam; form them of mere words and by your will, breathe life into their actions.

Your breath of life to character is the words on the page; the words must be living things not a deathly dissection.

You will be surprised how it changes your character’s behavior.

Owls and magic feathers

It is easy to fall into hoping for inspiration borne in through the window by unseen hands.

Or owls.

It is a bad thing to want to be a writer, and write only a little.

The great writers you read will make you wonder. “What do they do different to me?”

These great writers would say to most people who ask this question, “We write books,” but many of us search for a magic feather, something that will make our writing fly.

Anything but spending hours everyday writing.

Inspiration, is often the magic thing that we think makes all the difference. We like to pretend Milton, Steinbeck, Rowling and Keats were better writers because of their inspiration.

But it is just pretending.

Writing is nothing about self deception.

Sitting and talking to your friends about your great book that you’ve not yet started is self deception; nothing but writing will produce that book you long for.

Self deception is revealed by an absence of writing; this absence is not writing by any measure, good or bad.

There are some who believe a big owl will swoop in during the night and leave an almighty deposit on their desk.

They would call that deposit inspiration, and it will solve all their problems of narrative and character and story. They will not have to sit for hours writing.

This owl will have done all the work.

Inspiration is what we name our influences after we’ve written a book; Big owls will not replace writing in the production of a book.

Practice writing, not self deception.

The Rules of the Road

Writing is an art. While there are rules to writing there is no formula to writing a good novel.

These rules are simple.

First, you must fall in love with a story

Then, you must write a rough draft of that story.

Finally, polish that draft, through successive drafts, to bring the story out.

While doing this you will learn to write.

Everything else is like worrying about gilding the frame of a mirror and hoping that this will somehow make the mirror reflect better.

Each and every story requires us to learn anew, no one is an expert when it comes to a new story.

You must learn to write according to the needs of each and every story; each story contains its own lessons on the art of storytelling and writing.

Listen to the story, not your ego.

Love story.

That is, of course, what you are doing when you write- expressing a great love for story.

We write because we love the story so much we want to share it with others. There are many other reasons, all legitimate, but this is the most important reason.

If you don’t love story, you’ve no business writing stories.

It is like picking a sport, and pursuing it to be an Olympic gold medal winner. You simply won’t have what it takes.

It’s is this passion that will bring you every other skill needed to write.

Discipline.

Determination.

Strength.

Ability.

All these stem from passion, and a love for telling story.

It follows that good writing stems from this same root. Love what you do, and what you do will be great.

How to show your love for story.

You mustn’t feel as though you are fighting for words- that’s not to say give up, walk away; just forget your expectations.

Don’t get any big ideas, they’re not going to happen. Big ideas will lead to never writing a word.

You won’t write a word if you have these big ideas because your body and heart both know that there is a lot more to writing than big ideas of success.

Your body and heart know much more than your brain thinks it does.

Let the story be your biggest, most important idea.

Tell the story very well for the sake of telling the story well, and you will tell the story well.

This is the only way to express love for story.