The Opening Act...

My regular readers might notice that my past two piece have been about Act Three and Act Two, but for some reason, I am naming this piece, "The Opening Act." Well, a lot of people put their interest in the first act in the same way they would treat an opening act at a concert: Its purpose is to basically get the reader settled in, get some mood going, maybe something to cheer about before the big show starts. Well, that's what an opening act is for. It is definitely not what Act One is for.

In any written piece, Act One carries a lot of weight. Not only does it have to introduce the reader to the world and its characters, it also has to set the mood, establish pace, do a lot of prep work for things to come, provide some kind of challenge for the characters, and push them into action. Oh - don't forget the very compelling first paragraph (sentence, if possible). Act One is responsible for more than any opening act - Act One can single-handedly make or break a story within the first few pages.

The better Act One treatments are those that let different elements come together all at once, establishing place, period, and anything else important to the moment. "Ten-year-old Jeb walked barefoot along the winding path toward the creek, pushing aside the overgrown honeysuckle with an old stick and whistling aimlessly on a summer's day." With one sentence we can establish a lot, introduce our readers to a very light mood, a nice scene of an easygoing summer's day, and offer up a character for the reader to focus on. Does it grab the reader in the same way a gunshot or a car chase might? No, but surprisingly, a large number of stories have very little gunfire or car chases. In these cases, we draw our reader in with a clear, concise picture.

Of course, we need to bring forth the challenge this young Jeb is going to face sooner or later, and in most cases, sooner is better. The obstacle could be simple - the school bully and his friends are already at the creek and they want to mess with Jeb. Maybe he stumbles across a dead dog wearing a fancy collar and realizes it's his neighbor's golden retriever. Maybe he goes around a bend and meets the aliens. Who's to say? Early in Act One we need an event of interest that is going to not only show who our main character is, but will also establish how they respond to a situation - a quality of the character that will change as the story progresses. If little Jeb runs from the bully, doesn't tell their neighbor about the dog, or is scared of the aliens, then this will represent his potential vector for growth in the story. Hopefully by the end, he will be able to befriend the alien, let his neighbor know the bad news, or stomp the bully into the dirt.

Lastly, Act One closes with the "Call to Action." This is the part where the character decides to do something; take a step they would usually not take. Sometimes this is forced upon the character, sometimes it's the character's choice. Whatever it is, it is the character engaging in the first step of becoming something different. Something they weren't prepared for. It is where the adventure begins. And hopefully, it doesn't take up one-third of the book to kick things into gear.

So, no, Act One is nothing like the opening act. An opening act is just tolerable enough as to not disappoint you while you wait for the big show to start. When done right, Act One is the big show.         

Act Two: The Big Arrow

After my recent post discussing how to create a story by thinking about the ending first, I started thinking about the other pieces of a story and how we write those. In particular, my brain started to wrap around the concept of the middle of the story. For brevity's sake, I will refer to it simply as Act Two, but different techniques assign different names and purposes for it, which can get very confusing. The important part is that we think about just why Act Two can often be the most difficult part to write.

I know many writers who have kicked off a story guns-a-blazin', building up the world around them, offering a full, rich character, jumping into the inciting event, and sending the hero off on their journey. Amazing! How could this fail? Well, that's the thing - the reason I bring these up is that these stories usually stall after that point. The writer hits a "what now" moment, and the creation stops. In a novel, that wall hits at 70-100 pages (for me at least). It takes a special kind of push to go into the Act Two part, and it requires a deeper analysis of The Big Arrow.

I know, I know... what's The Big Arrow. Well, think of a simple question or dilemma. The next step we usually take is to solve it. We move from A to B because that's the best way to resolve a situation - one step to the next. Question --> answer. Problem --> solution. Conflict --> resolution. And what lies between those situations? The Big Arrow that we just assume happens on its own, though it is actually quite elaborate and deep (even though my font choice suggests otherwise).

The Big Arrow is something we need to tease apart, similar to a solved math problem. we see 25*12 = 300 and move on with our existence. However, Act Two is all in that equal sign; it's everything we do during that step. For Seinfeld fans, it's the "yadda, yadda, yadda" of storytelling: We can get from the beginning to the end quick enough, but it's obvious that something went on in there that we don't know about.

In terms of The Big Arrow for Act Two, it's the range where the character encounters obstacles, learns more about reaching their goal, and potentially has some kind of spiritual growth. In action stories, this is where our hero starts finding the simple henchmen of the criminal mastermind he hopes to defeat in Act Three, and one-by-one takes them out, all while working his way up the ladder to the villain's lieutenants, right-hand men, and eventually the boss himself. In a romance, this is where our protagonist develops more elaborate feelings for someone, challenges themselves to become more worthy, and perhaps prove themselves to be better than someone else vying for the same person's affections. In any case, the critical points are personal growth, facing obstacles, overcoming challenges, and if possible, raising the stakes. Is our action hero up against the clock, with a bomb set to destroy downtown Denver if he fails? Will our romantic lead be able to prove themselves before their beloved runs off to romantic Bratislava with someone else? Building tension should always be a part of Act Two (and yes, I paralleled Denver and Bratislava - deal with it.)

The only danger about Act Two is that the challenges and victories can become a kind of, "wash, rinse, repeat" cycle, technically never ending if the challenges just keep on coming. The trials of the hero should always bring them closer to victory, and measurably so, or the reader starts getting bored and the writing turns from a tense build-up of events to BOSH writing (BOSH - Bunch Of Stuff Happens). It short, The Big Arrow needs to hit its target - Act Three. And we should know all about that target from the moment we finish Act One - which will be next week's post.   

      

The Third Act

Most of the writers I know start writing their works by starting at the beginning and working their way through, page by page, in the order the story will be told. Even if the story jumps around different times and places, they write page 1 before they write page 2, then go on to page 3, 4, 5, and so forth. I have never met anyone who writes the ending first then tries to fill in everything that led to that point. However, putting together the concept for a story can actually work best if we mentally start from the end and try to figure out how we got there. This is called The Third Act story.

To simplify things, a lot of stories are written in three-act structure. The first act introduces our characters, an immediate conflict, and an inciting incident that kicks the story into motion. The second act is the adventure of the character facing and overcoming obstacles that prevent them from achieving their goals, all while raising the stakes of this adventure. This all ends in a big crescendo when the character reaches the make-or-break point. Then they fall right into Act Three - the confrontation, realization, and growth of the character when their goal is reached. This is the culmination of every word preceding it. This is the reason we read through all the rest of the pages - for the big payoff in Act Three. And it better be worth it.

Well, if Act Three is so important, maybe when we think about a story, we start not by thinking about the characters, the opening line, the introduction of conflict, etc., but let's think about what the reader should experience in that last act. What message do you want to tell the reader? What is the takeaway feeling? Do you want them to close the book and think about how any struggle is worth it for a just cause? How the ends justify the means (or don't)? How the pursuit of freedom is a neverending journey? Well, whatever that message is, start with that. Figure out that last page (in your head) then work backwards to figure out Act Three.

This means your next step is to figure out what kind of good conflict needs be be resolved in order to express that message. Is it the messenger crossing a war-torn land to deliver information that could end the fighting, and finally overcoming his last obstacles and delivering the goods with his last breath of life? Is it the weaker person finally standing up to his nemesis in a defiant show of courage? Maybe it's as simple as someone having a mind-altering moment of realization. Whatever it is, we try and think about that part next. Get something strong that we can visualize in our head. Then we take it one step further.

What were the factors that the character had to overcome and how is this person different from when the reader first met them. The Act Three character should have a level of growth from when we first introduce them - what do we want the reader to realize? A newfound maturity? A realization about themselves or the world around them? Act Three needs to show a character who has grown, so we need to frame in our mind what this final product is - for better or worse.

At this point, we know how the story is going to end, so the only thing left is for us the start writing page 1, setting up the character, the setting, etc., and finding the path that leads them from that page to Act Three. At that point, the process becomes so much easier. It takes a little practice, but thinking about The Third Act makes the first two acts write themselves.           

Sometimes It's "Don't Show, Kind of Tell"

While most of my readers know me from writing workshops or some other orbit of writers, a few readers also know me through my social media feed (primarily FaceBook, the platform formerly known as Twitter, etc. - feel free to drop a friend request). And those who know me through FaceBook are aware that I went through a very stressful adventure this week - a very life-in-the-balance situation (not my life, but still). There are a number of takeaways I got from this, including some I can use as a writer, but the life experience was so stirring I have to share.

One of my friends lives a few towns over and I visit her periodically. She is "along in her years" as she might say as a good lady of the south, and has lived on her own since her husband passed away five years ago. We have nice visits - sitting back, drinking scotch and talking about writing and the world at large. However, as someone of her years would attest, she was not doing as well as she'd like to lately. A few more doctor's appointments, a few extra prescriptions, more aches and pains, and so on. We'd talk about them, she'd just say she was being fussy, and life went on.

Then our local heat wave came to visit. Not as hot as some of the ones I've experienced here, but thick with humidity so the air had a weight to it. Now, my friend had air conditioning and no fear of using it, so I felt a little better that she would be okay. However, friends being the people we check in on just because we want to, I gave her a call.

No answer. No answering machine pick-up.

Okay, that was unusual. As a woman who was along in her years, technology was no longer her friend and on several occasions I had helped her work with the phone, her computer, her refrigerator, and basically anything that used electricity. I knew the answering machine was a little prone to problems, but this didn't seem right. Maybe she was visiting her friend, where their dogs would play together. Maybe she was getting her hair done. Maybe. Or maybe not.

I went to her house unannounced, and the concern rose. There was a package on the porch. Unusual. I knocked on the door - no answer. I didn't hear the A/C rumbling away. There was some mail in the mailbox, but not a lot. I knocked again - nothing. One of her cats hopped up in the window amidst the blinds, but that was it.

Now, here's the writing lesson here. Hopefully, you are interested in how this story ends. More to the point, you might be as worried as I was at the time. Why? Because I have only told you pieces of the story. I have focused on the absence of things, on the silence that makes us worry. Sometimes we show our characters and communicate a scene to the reader, and it is full and rich yet somehow lacking in any kind of suspense. By only offering pieces on information, by selecting specific pieces of the puzzle that elude to an image but don't reveal it, we draw our reader in and they start drawing their own conclusions as they read on, hoping for the happy ending. Does this work? Well, when I posted this situation on FaceBook asking for advice, I got over 140 responses - the most I ever received outside of my birthday.

Now if this had been a tragic story, I wouldn't have exploited my friend to make a point. It did turn out that my friend had a medical emergency and was in the hospital, but it happened before I even called. My friend is recovering nicely and doing well, and might finally take my advice and keep her cane by her side at all times. However, my adventure to her house during the heat wave provided an opportunity to present how sometimes it's all about not showing the whole story, but teasing the reader with just enough information to make them want more. And as for my friend (who requested her name be left out), well, she's a writer as well, so I am sure she appreciates how this came out.

And as a side lesson - always remember your cane!       

One True Sentence

Yes, I often get hung up on writing stories. Not the writer's block kind of hung up, but rather trying to think about how I want to present a story, lay out the idea, create a mood, all that stuff. I get lost in all the technicalities and lessons and rules, and lose track of my process. It's easy to do - sometimes, if I'm not careful, it's inevitable. Invariably, what I end up is pretty scattershot - it misses the point, it lacks the feelings, it tells rather than shows, all those usual mistakes than I should've long since outgrown. And I know it will happen again.

This is when I fall back on Hemingway. True, this was an author who could at times be very succinct, and at other times wander all over the page. Everyone seems to have a very distinct opinion about him, and you can usually tell which of Hemingway's works a person has read by their feelings about him as a writer. Well, be that as it may, I often set those opinions aside and dig into the individual quotes. Often I take them very much out of context, using them for my own personal ends rather than his intentions - whatever those may have been. And in this regard, I often return to the idea of "One True Sentence."

This phrase comes from Hemingway's posthumous memoir, A Moveable Feast, which in itself is shrouded in controversy due to many factors. Besides the many edits, rewrites, and so forth prior to its publication, it's hard to tell where the original words land. However, those things are not important relative to my purpose (as I said, I often take things out of context for situational purposes). In this regard, I look at one particular tip he supposedly offered himself as a starting writer in 1920s Paris:

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. 

I like to think these are his actual words, the young writer telling himself in no uncertain terms that he does not have to be afraid of failure because he knows of his past successes, and all he has to do is be true to himself. Armed with this quote, I approach my writing from a new trajectory. Whenever I have to write something, I get away from all the rules, all the noise, everything that is getting in my way, and I ask myself in no uncertain terms, "What is this writing about?"

At that point, the only thing I need to write is that one true sentence. It doesn't matter what the elements of the story are, who it's for, or what the characters are about. It can be a story about an agoraphobic werewolf, a vampire trying to style their hair, or aliens arriving on Earth just in time for New Year's Eve celebrations - it doesn't matter. At its core, a story has a very simple meaning, a very personal message. If I focus on that one question - "What is this writing about?" - and answer it in the most simplistic way possible, then the rest is just words surrounding that answer.

Now, Hemingway scholars might find this overly simplistic, or that I am missing the greater point of this quote. That's fine. Like most products of the creative process, it can mean many things to many people. This is the takeaway I need for that one moment in time. In short, once you focus on the truth of the situation, then you are writing in exactly the manner meant to be. The rest is just words.    

Words in the Fog

Yes, I am going to start off another post whining about my health. I have been recovering from pneumonia and I think I am just about there. The only part that is lingering a little too long is... the fog. Maybe you've heard of brain fog - it being one of the extreme symptoms of long COVID where a person can barely put thoughts together. For most people, the fog is not as crippling. However, it does make ideas and concepts more difficult to grasp and process. And being that I am in the fog these days, I know of what I speak.

Fortunately, I have gotten into this place a few times and in doing so, learned how to manage when my brain's vision is very restricted. It's tough to do, but it can be a very beneficial writing exercise even when you are not trapped in the pea-soup struggles of limited mental capacity. In fact, it can help with a lot of things - meditation comes to mind - where it is all about living in a small world, not a big one.

Think about being in the worst fog you've known - in a weather sense for now. The kind that triggers all kinds of fears because most of the world you've known is shadowy and obscure. The stuff you wouldn't want to drive in - or worse yet, that you have to drive in but can barely see the road. What is your strategy for moving through it? What is your plan?

The simplest move is to set your sight on the nearest thing in your field of vision - a streetlight, the road, a tree. You take that one item and train yourself on it. You approach it, bring it closer, try to identify the slightest detail about it. You think you see a tree nearby. Take a step closer and inventory the details. Would you call it tall or broad? Skinny or leafy? Alive or dead? Bring yourself closer to it, trying to answer whatever detail you can see. Get it to the point where you can answer those questions, then ask more? Does it have bark? Broken branches? Could you climb it? (Disclaimer: Don't climb trees in the fog.) Focus all of your attention on the simple, the mundane, and understand the tree piece by piece.

Whether you are in a mental fog or a writer's fog, the exercise is to just take on one piece of the world. I have written myself out of the fog simply by writing a narrative about the feel of the keys of my keyboard as I type those very words. I focus on their give, their resistance, the slight texture of each key (except for the smooth A, S, D, and W - if you know, you know.) I explore one simple element, bringing my whole world down to that level. And from there, I create.

Now, does anyone care about a narrative piece about someone typing on a cold winter's morning, and getting a three-paragraph description of how the keyboard feels? I am thinking no. However, I do know that when I created that piece years ago during a similar illness, it helped me concentrate. It helped me focus. It helped me write. Ultimately, I was able to create something when my mind needed to create anything. And this piece you have just read might not be perfect, but it was written through a pretty bad fog by simply bringing my attention to a very specific part of my process. The rest, as they say, is just letters.      

Writing Cheat Codes

Admittedly, I am still not back to 100% health. As noted in my previous post, I have been trying to bounce back from some walking pneumonia, and it takes a lot of energy to do things. Even though I might look like my "bounce" is fine, in fact, those things are still a struggle. After my writing workshop on Saturday, it took an great amount of energy to just get home and take a two-hour nap. It was truly exhausting! So, needless to say, my writing volume has taken a hit.

As also noted last week, I decided to do some reading to feed my creativity. However, it came to me that I could fall back on a few writing tricks that usually help me produce good, emotionally gripping pieces of work without totally expending myself. These are what I call the cheat codes of writing - the little tricks you can do to create a moving piece without much effort. Now, like most cheat codes, other experienced people can tell right away when you are using these, and they might call you out. However, if your objective is just to get some writing in and really flex your creative and emotional muscles, cheat codes work just fine.

The first cheat code is to write about your earliest good experience with a parent, grandparent, favorite aunt, or other loving family member. Write it from your perspective as a child, or reflect upon it as an adult - whichever the case, it should be a story written from the perspective of love and innocence. I always talk my childhood experience of sitting with my mother, watching her write articles for the newspaper, and plenty of times I sat beside my father's easel and watched him paint. Writing such memories from the perspective of an innocent child will move the reader because they are simple observations from a loving child. The story doesn't have to be more than that and it will still move the reader. More importantly, it will remind your inner writer that you still got it.

This next one's easy: pet stories. Everyone likes a story about a child and their first pet. Regardless of whether the pet was a cat, dog, horse, chicken, or fish, writing about that connection between a person and an animal is a natural draw. Something very primal, very simple, is brought out with those stories, and every reader has some kind of understanding of that connection - even if they hadn't felt it themselves. My father insisted he did not like pets, and we had a bunch of them. And yes, he loved every one of them despite his complaints (there's a great story about me catching him dancing a Kentucky two-step with our cat, but that's for another time). Writing a pet story gets a lot of mileage.

This one's not as easy from a personal perspective, but it's an easy win for a quality story: Death. Write about that moment you realized what death was. It could be as simple as when your family had to put down your dog, or when an uncomfortable first-grade teacher gathered everyone in class together to tell them that one of their friends wouldn't be there anymore. If it's close to the heart, all the better. Those moments have a universal connectivity with most every reader, so writing it will garner a response every time.

And if you want to really hit the trifecta (and you have the right ingredients), write that story about the day your first, most beloved pet died. The Dead Pets story is the master cheat code. Write that story. If you shed a few of your own tears while creating it, every reader will do the same.

For my next trick, I am going to take a two-hour nap in preparation for my next writing workshop tonight. Maybe some day I will write about it...      

Instead of Writing, How About Reading?

For those of you who keep up with my posts and caught Friday's bit about overworking, let me just say a few things. First, I stick by my words. Sometimes it is better to get some reading in to satisfy our need for creative exploration. Second, the things I wrote during that period of overload were not my best works. You will not be seeing them. With any luck, nobody will. Third - and this is the most important of them all - when you overload yourself, make sure you don't get sick.

A famous ancient philosopher once said, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself." Unfortunately, I did not do that as much as I should've. Belatedly, I did "check" myself in the sense of finally going to a doctor, who has a pretty good feeling that had already "wrecked" myself to some degree. Nothing permanent, nothing crippling, but nothing good or worthy of an origin story. To make a long story short, it was 97 degrees out here and I was in the doctor's office, watching her set up my prescriptions for treatment of walking pneumonia.

On the bright side, I can walk around, which is helpful. On the downside, it (and most every other activity) quickly exhausts me. Even typing up this post is a bit of an ordeal. However, I have decided to take the other part of my own advice and do the reading thing. I will still be going to my writing workshops if I can muster up the energy, and if I get inspired, I will write things. However, my primary goal will be to read things - particularly, things I have already read that really got my brain thinking in a different way.

And on that note, I will offer my Big List of Things to Read, a.k.a. - Reading in the Time of Pneumonia. Take them or leave them - these are what I will be going through:

Non-fiction:

• Liar's Poker, The Big Short, Boomerang (The mortgage crisis in three books), Michael Lewis
• Natural Obsessions, Natalie Angier
• Money Makes the World Go Round, Barbara Garson

Fiction: 

• Skeleton Crew, Stephen King
• Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
• Thieves' World, assorted authors

I hope to be back Friday with some actual advice on writing. For now, I have to go and pick up a big pile of pills. Stay healthy and keep on writing.   

Overload!

I can honestly say this has been one of the busiest weeks of the year for me - and it ain't even over. I've been taking about 6 hours of online courses every day this week, working through a bunch of at-home tasks, managing a few moments of personal chaos, and doing all of this while maintaining a low-grade fever due to a cold that doesn't know summer is around the corner. Oh - and I've been writing as well.

In my book, this amounts to a pretty full dance card. In fact, I can tell I probably bit off a little more than I could chew for the week when I decided to go to sleep at 8 p.m. one day. It just felt like the right time, since there was nothing more I could possibly do without falling asleep. In hindsight, however, I did notice that the one activity that really took a hit during my busy week was the writing. In fact, having gone over some of Tuesday's writing yesterday, I realized it was suffering because of all the other things I was piling on my plate.

Before anyone else brings it up, I understand that I always say, "Find some time to write every day." I still believe that. However, sometimes the facts on the ground are that the huge amount of responsibilities you have might push your writing down the list a bit. Furthermore, since I was running a bit of a fever, maybe writing was the one thing I could've left off the list. I still chose to do everything, utterly exhausted myself, possibly shook off the cold, and wrote some really bad stuff. Is any of this bad? Did my poor writing cause my writing skills to lose some ground? No, but there was probably a better option to feed the creative side of my brain without going through the strain of writing.

Any guess what the best alternative might be?

Well, when the task of writing might just be a little too straining for you after a hard day's work, the alternative is to read something. Anything, really, but preferably something you've never read before. I do not recommend dusting off that copy of The Iliad you've been meaning to dive into. Rather, I keep a number of anthologies by various authors lying around my bookshelves. Collections of short stories and essays by various authors always gives me a chance to get some reading in without devoting myself to an entire book. I can pull out a copy of my collection of O. Henry, decide I can read about twenty pages, look for a story or stories that add up to that goal, and go to work. If not that, poetry works as well. Or Vonnegut, or King, or any themed anthology (I particularly like, "The Ultimate..." collection by Byron Preiss for getting different takes on subjects like zombies, werewolves, etc.)

The key here is that while you don't necessarily have to write every day if you are just too burned out, it is still beneficial to feed the creative part of your mind. As creatives, that little bit of additional stimulus every day keeps us healthy and active, ready to actually kick our writing into gear when we finally reclaim some energy. And nothing helps recharge the creative batteries like reading. If anything, read something that's not so good then tell yourself, "You know, I am going to write something better than that," and then let the writing begin.      

It's All About Focus

I know I go on about this a little too much, but I wanted to discuss the importance of focus when it comes to writing. Not necessarily the art of staying on topic - though that is important - but rather focusing on the story you want to tell and targeting the very heart of the matter. This is what makes writing a very intimate experience, and the reader feels it as well. The more focused we are on a concept, feeling, or idea, the more the reader experiences what we are talking about.

To demonstrate this, I think about the people I know who want to write about their life. They have a lot of great stories, their life has been a series of wonderful adventures, and they want to commit these to words. Therefore, they set upon the task of writing about their life. It's usually a mess at this point, because writing about a life is viewing things from 35,000 feet - the detail, the focus, is lost. Rather, they talk about their life but we really don't get the intimate experience of knowing who they actually are. We just get the broad strokes, when there is so much more to discover. 

I think a great way to experiment with focus is through a writing exercise. Now, I cannot take credit for this - it was mentioned by a fellow writer in one of my workshops and I thought it was so brilliant that I had to share it. (Plus, she's a regular reader, so she knows who she is.) It's a little elaborate, so work with me. The exercise was first, to draw a floor plan of your childhood home. I know - why is a writer drawing things? This is to activate our memories but to narrow our field and get into the context of what we would write about. The next step (that involves writing) is to pick out one room in that floor plan, and write about one memory from that one room in that house. No wandering around, no talking about all the Christmas celebrations in the family room or all the dinners cooked in that kitchen. One room, one moment, one memory. And... write!

To some, this may sound genuinely boring. Seriously, when there's so much life to write about, why spend all your words at that one moment in that one room? That's the genius of this exercise - writing about that one moment gives us the opportunity to express as much as possible about what made that moment so important; why it stood out after all these years and we decided to write about that one point in time and no other. In that one memory we can communicate more about ourselves than a long discussion about all the family gatherings we had or the color of every wall in the house. 

This is the intimacy that comes with writing about ourselves. If we truly want to write about ourselves and our rich life experiences, we need to make them living things, and we need to give that to the reader. It might just be one memory out of millions, but if we focus on ourselves and everything that comes with that memory, it's a truly expressive experience.

(Thanks again to the writer who shall not be mentioned by name. Expect my response to this writing prompt shortly.)       

Why Am I Reading This?

For those who didn't hear the amazing news, we just had one of the greatest upsets in sports history. The USA Men's cricket team managed to beat Pakistan in group play, making this easily the most unexpected victory in the history of the Cricket World Cup. The US team is hardly a powerhouse, and holds a spot in the tourney mostly because the United States is hosting it this year. However, this victory now places the team atop Group A, and well-positioned to make it to the next round. This victory is an amazing step forward for US cricket enthusiasts, and will be remembered long after the Cricket World Cup wraps up.

Okay - I am wagering that this first paragraph split the room amongst my readers. One group will be, "What are you talking about?" while others will be camped in the "Who cares?" group. As epic as the news is, this blog is really not an elite forum for cricket fans (and neither is this country for that matter). Most of you probably didn't know the US was hosting the Cricket World Cup, and were more focused on cicadas than cricket. 

This is, of course, something we have to consider as writers. If we write something about, say, the USA victory over Pakistan, we need to consider a few things. First, who are we writing this for? If we are writing this for a general audience, we need to approach it from their perspective: people who know virtually nothing about cricket. We have to get them interested without trying to educate them about the sport. Rather, we can approach it from their level, perhaps starting with, "I bet you didn't know the World Cricket Cup was being played in the USA right now. Well, it is, and the entire world got quite a shock when..." This introduces the uninformed reader to the subject in a safe manner, and they are not confused and turned off from the get-go.

Now, if you are approaching an audience of US sports enthusiasts, you are probably still not going to find many cricket fans. However, you now have a different perspective to approach the subject. You can lead with, "The Amazing Mets. The Miracle on Ice. Now we have another moment that defines the great upsets in sports history..." This appeals to a specific interest, drawing in the reader from their place of comfort. The appeal to famous moments in sports is an immediate draw, and the comparison can lead them into the world of cricket.

Of course, if you have an international audience or a bunch of cricket enthusiasts, just jump right in and lead with my opening lines to this post. They get to the point, draw in the cricket fans, and get the discussion rolling. No beating around the bush or building up the background that your audience would already know - it's just a jump-right-in approach that gets to the point. 

In short, when you think about writing a piece for an audience, the first question they will be asking themselves is, "Why am I reading this?" If you know your audience, you need to answer this question and appeal to their interests right up front. Otherwise, they lose interest faster than most of my readers will lose interest in the Cricket World Cup.         

Mid-Year Resolutions

Even after factoring in all the usual springtime festivities, this past month has been a busy one indeed for me. Between the graduations, the birthdays, the unexpected trips and traveling, an epic computer crash, some out-of-the-blue health issues and a flare-up of my favorite bad knee, it's amazing I got anything done this month. And my regular readers might've noticed that I had to cut back to one post a week for a while as I tried to keep up with everything else (apologies for the rerun posts). However, this happens to everyone - especially writers.

Now, I don't want to say I've had writer's block this past month. Far from it - I've been rather productive. However, I haven't been writing the things I've really wanted to write, mostly because I am not sure how to go about them. To me, this is the difference between writer's block and just being very busy - one is the inability to create, the other is not being able to take the time required to place yourself in the creative space required to make those special things come to life. So I haven't been blocked, I have just been in every other place besides my creative one.

And this leads me to the subject: Mid-year resolutions. Now, my regular readers will know I am not exactly a fan of resolutions based on the turn of a calendar page, and most everyone will know that the middle of the year is still a month away. However, this feels like a good time to plan out a few things that I can apply in the second half of the year to help me steer around problems like the ones I have been having over the past month. And I think it will help to start this list now because it's going to take a while to implement.

Firstly - and I recommend this to everyone - I will affix my writing time into a very regular place in the day. This time will be a pretty slack space, preferably right after I eat, where I can just put things together and get things onto the page or simply chase them out of my head. Sounds easy until you try it, so I recommend a half-hour, three days per work week (write on the weekends at your own pace).

Secondly - I will keep my notepad nearby (it's actually my phone, but you get the idea). If I have a burst of creativity, I will take advantage of it. I will write down (or record) any weird idea for a character, a story, a plot twist. It doesn't matter if I wake up at 3 a.m. with thoughts about a homicidal houseplant, I will make sure I commit it to something and look back at it again - probably during my pre-set writing time. 

Thirdly - I will bounce ideas off of other people. Being creative is wonderful, but it can be difficult in isolation. The other week I started bouncing a story idea off of a few friends, and it did wonders for helping me put it together in my own head, where I had been going in circles for too long. Now, it helps to bounce the right ideas off the right people, so choose your targets appropriately. However, in my case, I think I will be more open about these ideas because some just need a little breathing room to flourish.

I am posting these resolutions not to brag about my own goals as a writer, but to offer a little guidance to others who might be looking for a little direction and inspiration, or just a way to get out of their ruts. Everyone can benefit from a little promise-making, so I hope you make some good mid-year resolutions of your own (whenever that mid-year thing actually arrives).        

For Memorial Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

 

The Writer's Spirit Animal - the Cicada

Up here in my little spot of the Midwest, it is cicada season. Every seventeen years (or thirteen for different breeds), about a bajillion bugs creep out from their little homes underneath old trees and undergrowth, molt off their old skins, feed for a little bit, then screech continuously for the few weeks that is their mating season. For those of you who have not heard this screeching noise, it's fairly tame as far as bug noises go. However, when 1,000,000 of them decide to harmonize in a nearby forest, or a few thousand camp out and have a singalong in the neighbor's backyard, it is memorable. When we first moved out here when I was very young, I experienced my first cicada uprising. It was like the entire forest preserve was shaking with an invisible force of life. It was fascinating and just a little scary.

Now, many decades later, I have grown used to the shrieking little fellows, and I have even related to them to a degree. I don't necessarily follow their habits - I have long since given up sitting on my porch, shrieking aloud to attract females - but I have found a certain connection with them. Whether it's their red eyes or their very dry skin, something between the cicadas and me felt similar. It took a while to finally make the connection, but indeed I figured it out. That one common thread we must have was staring me in the face: Cicadas are obviously writers.

Now, at this point science can neither confirm nor refute the writing habits of the seventeen-year cicada, given the time-intensive nature of such studies. However, my less-than-scientific methods see the commonality between the two. You see, much like a cicada, a dedicated writer will spend most of their time in deep, silent thought. A hibernation of the body while the mind silently races about, putting together their latest masterpiece. If not for the human demands of regular calories and nutrition, a real writer would likely sit dormant for long spans of time, dust settling on them, moss growing high on their northern side as they contemplated their story.

And then, in a shriek of activity, the writer bursts forth with a flurry of activity. They become alive with activity - frantically writing, editing, workshopping pieces, getting feedback from everyone, all with that constant sound of them talking about their latest work. During this active streak, the writer rarely does anything but drink coffee, type, and occasionally let out a screech of triumph when a particular phrase or scene really works. Every writer knows this sound, and when they hear another writer make that noise, they nod their head in proud agreement.

And then, without anyone noticing it, the writer will finally fall silent again. The writing binge will be over, a new set of thoughts filling their mind as their body goes into that dormant state. Their coffee grows cold in the mug, the sheets of written copy sit there unedited, and it's back into hibernation as their mind churns about, going entering the next cycle of creation.

Maybe this is stretching it. Maybe I am a little more active than a cicada, and my writing cycles are a little faster than seventeen years. But as I hear them outside, screeching up a storm, I know they are in a very active state of mind, doing what nature demands of them. I nod my head in agreement, then get back to writing.       

Why Do Writing Prompts?

The simplest exercise for any writer; the push-up of the writing community is the writing prompt. Someone rattles off a word, topic, question, or otherwise meaningless sentence and you spend the next eight minutes writing about it. Has anyone ever written the perfect bit of prose from this exercise? Never. Has that eight-minute endeavor brought home a Pulitzer? Doubt it. And yet, just like a push-up, we do these to build up our writing muscles because they usually don't get that kind of exercise in the regular world.

If I asked you to tell me why you are on this journey called writing, you would probably lean back, think for a second, and offer a simple answer. "It brings me a joy I can't find anywhere else," "I like exploring the creative world inside my head," or "I want to be rich." (I genuinely hope it is not the last one.) I might follow up with a few more questions, you would offer answers, and we would have a conversation. No big surprise there - we do this every day. However, if I ask you to spend eight minutes writing about just why you are on this journey of writing, your answer magically changes. You not only answer the question, but you explain it. You think about how the other side of the conversation would go, and answer those points in one long narrative. Or maybe you answer the prompt by offering an example that crystallizes your feelings and gives the reader an entire experience. Maybe it comes to you in poem form, and you express yourself through metered rhyme. Most of these options would never occur organically during a standard conversation, but when it's a prompt, suddenly we find ourselves exercising.

My original approach to writing prompts went somewhere along the lines of "Ugh!!!!" I couldn't see the point of writing something that had no other purpose other than to make me work for eight minutes. Believe it or not, I felt the same way about push-ups and running laps in the gym. I was going literally nowhere, doing something I very rarely do under normal conditions, and killing precious time when I could actually be playing volleyball or whatever the day's sport was. Well, as it turned out, I made a discovery later in life. First, running a few laps before playing volleyball is a great way to stretch your legs so you don't pull your hamstring in the second game (learned that the hard way). Second, if you run a few laps regularly, you will have much more endurance to play more volleyball in the long run. And most importantly, you spend very little time actually playing volleyball and a lot more time just trying to stay in volleyball shape, and that's what the laps are for.

So even though my epic projects get their time, they do not get as much time as I like. I go to my workshops, talk about writing, review and critique other writers' works, and tend to the rest of my life - then I write. So, yes, those writing prompts help me get fit and ready for those times when I can go on a nice writing binge and get a few chapters knocked out. And while I don't know what the writer's equivalent is to pulling a hamstring, I can assure you I don't do that either.

Writer's prompt: What was the moment that made you want to pursue writing? Eight minutes, and... go!       

Time and Place

It's been a rough week for me, very rough indeed. I pushed myself to do my distance cycling (though by the end, I am not sure whether my bicycle or my knees were groaning the loudest). I also put in some quality treadmill time, took care of some household chores, finished up some business stuff, and prepared for Saturday's Writing Workshop (2:30 - 4:30 p.m., Park Forest library, for those who are interested). Right now I need find something relaxing to do.

By relaxing, I mean editing my latest work.

"How is that relaxing?" you might ask, and you wouldn't be alone in that sentiment. However, for everything we get into, we need to know the best way to react to it and the best way to take advantage of it. When I have been through a lot of physically demanding stuff along with stressful activities, I guarantee that the best place for my mind to settle into is the meticulous job of doing a line-edit or busily proofreading a manuscript (of which I have three to get through). During that process, I put my sore body into a comfortable position and let the critical, intellectual part of my mind take over. Sometimes I even have a metronome ticking in the background at 60 cycles per minute to match my usual resting heart rate (yes, there are plenty of apps for that). The point is, it works for me at that moment.

To further that point, as writers, we need to know what activities, outside factors, and other influences bring us into a place where we are ready to write. This could be a totally different set of factors than those that prepare our minds for editing, or just reading, or doing literally anything else. We need to maintain a certain self-awareness where we can monitor ourselves and realize, "You know, I do my best writing when I wake up," or, "My attention is the sharpest on a full stomach," or whatever. This way we target our senses and our moods to make the best out of a situation we're in.

You know my editing mindset already. Well, my best writing mindset is any time I am sitting in front of my laptop (that has become a physical cue worthy of Pavlov's dog), in some sort of public setting, with general noise in the background - but not too loud. It's better when I have been awake for a little bit, and preferably after having thought about personal things (I think that opens the creative doors for me). Once I have those elements around me, I just go into writing mode. Using just those little signs, I wrote an entire manuscript on my daily train ride.

Here's an experiment: Figure out what your best and worst situations for writing, reading, and for editing are (chances are they're all different moods). Then, for the next few weeks, when you find yourself in the ideal situation for writing, do some writing. Write literally anything - just start working that part of your brain. When the situation is best for reading, do that - focus on it and commit to it. And when the time is write to edit, well, hopefully you will be able to edit all that stuff you did during the writing phase.

Give yourself a month of doing that, then review the results. Look at what you've created, and examine how you feel about it. Hopefully, you will be in the first stages of forming some good writing habits, and you will be using them to the best of your abilities.       

A Little Comment About Modifiers

Instead of me rambling for a few paragraphs before getting to the point, let's just jump right into this while the subject is fresh. I deliberately used the word "little" in the title to make a point, and it's about modifiers. Specifically, what do they offer and when do we really need to use them? There are definitely occasions where modifiers are necessary - how will the reader know if a character is tall, dark, and handsome if you don't say it? - but we tend to use them more than we need to, and our writing pays the price.

Take the title of this piece: "A Little Comment About Modifiers." In this title, "Little" is the modifier, and it makes the title sound all quaint and homey. However, what does this actually provide the reader? By merely looking at the screen, you can tell that this commentary is about the usual length of my comments, so there's nothing really little about it. So, by calling it little, the only thing I am really accomplishing is a sort of trivialization of a commentary that I am actually proud of. One might say I am belittling it - pun intended.

Is this nit-picking? Sort of. We often use words such as these in standard conversation, putting an inflection on them so that whoever is listening gets the point. Often this comes with no shortage of sarcasm. "Why don't I like black olives? Let me give you a little hint - I'm allergic to them!" In this spoken-word example, little is far from referring to something small, but rather understating something that is actually very important. In this case, I openly endorse using a modifier in this manner.

However, most people don't do this, and it gets thrown around without concern, all to the detriment of our poor readers.

"I was a little mad." "We were sort of lost." "She was kind of tall." In these examples, using a modifier takes a simple point-of-fact comment, and actually makes it less interesting. A reader wants to read about someone being mad, not a little mad. How different is being lost from sort of lost? Kind of tall is kind of boring. Each of these sentences has a wonderful opportunity to bring forth some real creativity and make the lines pop, but instead they become weaker for their modifier. Whenever you find yourself using a weak modifier like, a little, kind of, sort of, or similar words, use the opportunity to write a few lines that really show off your writing. Here's what I did with the examples at the beginning of the sentence.

"I was mad. Not foaming-at-the-mouth, red-in-the-face, take-a-swing-at-anything mad, but pretty damn far from happy."

"We were lost. It felt like if we just backtracked a few intersections and took one left instead of a right, we'd be on our way, but we didn't know which right turn was the wrong one."

"She was tall. Her height let her stand just above any crowd, enough to make eye contact with her from across the room"

That's all it takes, and the reader gets a little more engaged rather than a little more bored. So, give this a little try on your next piece, and see if it makes a little difference.           

Writing the Perfect Word

I'll be the first to admit that today I am under the weather. Not in that good, hungover, "I feel horrible but it was worth it" kind of way, but in that spring cold bug in the sinuses kind of way. This kind of stuff really saps my energy, so in some ways this will not be a long post. In other ways, however, it will be very long. Confused? Well, I will fall back on Mark Twain's quote, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

When we don't concern ourselves with getting the perfect words on the page, we can actually write quite a bit. We can write long, drawn-out descriptions of many things, we can ramble on about our annoying sinus cold, we can explain in one-hundred words what might normally take us twenty to discuss. That's where I am at right now - I want to explain something fairly simple, but since my batteries are low, I will not focus on using the one perfect word and instead throw a cloud of ten at you in exchange.

It's only by sheer chance that the subject of the perfect word came up today when I am feeling far from perfect. Someone in our writing workshop was discussing their recent writing experience, and their observation boiled down to this: Getting exactly the right word to stand for everything you want to say, knowing that word will last well beyond your time, is surprisingly hard. Words are like that. They carry a lot of weight, but they are also precise devices meant to tap into very particular emotions. Love and hate are thrown around a lot because they refer to strong emotions, but we all know that they are broad terms that sometimes miss the more detailed point we want to make, whereas passion and rage  might be far better qualified to speak on your behalf. This is the exhausting part of choosing the right word.

Back during my time in finance, Fed Chief Alan Greenspan used the term, "irrational exuberance" during one of his speeches back in late-1996. You likely do not remember the speech, but that two-word phrase caught on as the best way to describe the building stock-market bubble that promptly blew up a little over three years later. Two words that defined the late 1990s. Why did they catch on? Well, it likely comes as no surprise that Greenspan later acknowledged that he spent twenty minutes sitting in the bath, ruminating over the exact way to quantify just what the markets suspected. Twenty minutes figuring out two words? Really? Well, they were well-spent because long afterward, those words remain a key phrase in finance and economics books discussing that era.

As for my friend on the writing group, he was looking for a word to go on a headstone. I don't know how long he spent on the challenge, but I am sure it was more time than Chairman Greenspan spent. And that is just why we can rush through and write a blog post in twenty minutes to talk about the exhaustive effort it takes to choose the right words. And it's also why we read those works again when we have more time and energy, comb through the meaning, and make it a real work of art.

For now, I have finished my words, so I am going to retreat to the couch and fight off this bug.          

A Writer's Non-Writing Tip

Anyone who knows me or who is a regular (or semi-regular) reader of this blog knows I have had a pretty rough month or so. I won't go into details about that - look over my post list and I think you'll get the gist of things. Now, in the past I have discussed ways to use adversity or hard times to sharpen your writing skills - often they boil down to, "write about things." However, this has been a very trying time for me, so I've kicked it into high gear and pulled out my strongest writing tool. Surprisingly, it doesn't even involve writing.

As an aside, some of the most intense writing I ever did was during my career in finance as an economist. I had my lovely little space where I would write, and I would diligently put together some truly inspired, insightful, perfectly voiced analysis. These things were legends of economic writing, and I would share them right now if they weren't proprietary information. Anyway, the most telling sign that I was in the middle of a truly epic writing breakthrough is the energy-savers on the office lights would kick in and the area would go dim. I would have to wave my arms around so the energy-saver detectors would recognize there was a human in the office and turn the lights back on, then I would diligently go back to my work, which involved me being motionless. Not writing, not moving, not doing anything but thinking. And what thoughts they were.

Sometimes, a writer's greatest things are in their head. Not their greatest writing - that's always in words - but their greatest ideas and insights form within the chaos of the mind. A writer can sit there, eyes fixated on a blank screen, for long stretches while their mind churns over amazing thoughts, connecting the dots into unseen patterns that suddenly bring out a picture they never expected. And then... the magic happens and they write it down just as easily as anything else.

So, getting back to my point about this strongest writing tool that I keep in my back pocket for the truly tough times, it's surprisingly simple. In my case, I go for a walk. Not sightseeing, not adventuring. I walk around, and let my mind mill through what is really bugging me. The grief, the sorrow, the frustration or the fear of mortality - I let those things take over and watch what they do and where they go. One by one, they run around, scream, rage, bring out all their anxieties, and reveal everything I need to know about them. I let them wear themselves down until they are ragged and exhausted, and I see what they are really yelling about. I see what scares them, what frightens them, what makes them demand so much of my brain's bandwidth. At that point, I know exactly what they are. At that point, I can bring out the writer's favorite tool - I can write about them, and put them away for good. 

I'm not saying this is easy - I took a 15-mile walk today to try and wear down the current beasts - but it is important. Sometimes we need to hand the mic over to the problems and just let them rage. Preferably in a safe place, like on a walk, or while we're cycling, or somewhere without much distraction. Then, once we do this, we can create some of the most genuine, honest writing we have ever accomplished. And a little cardio as well.         

Hump Day - The Writing Version

Any writer has been there; many more than once. We have our character, we have our conflict, we know the ending we want. We jump into the creative process full-force - whether with a short story, a novella, or a full-length manuscript, we take on the project eagerly and relentlessly. It is something we have thought about, planned for, and spread out before us as the grand design for a wonderful creation. We hit those words running, and we create. We create a wonderful opening, our first sentence is a real grabber, our character introduction is perfect, everything's right on schedule. And then...

then...

Oof. Then there's a lag. A big, fat, old nothing. We've gotten our story to a point and we look forward and see this big empty page before us. We've burned through the exciting part and now we sit in the thick of creation, and it feels like something's missing. We are no longer connecting things. We know the next conflict, the next challenge, but our character is just sitting there, and we can't seem to figure out just how to get them to the next scene. It's a common problem, but it is the worst thing because we go from full-speed ahead to just sitting on the side of the road.

This is usually a sign that the character is missing an internal driver, or least the writer isn't completely in touch with it quite yet. Often, stories flow like chase scenes - the character hits an intersection and has to turn left, right, straight, or stop. Once that choice is made, they go barreling head-long into the next decision rushing upon them, turning into side plots and character-developing arcs, passing distractions and knocking over inconvenient story obstacles. However, story development isn't always so clean. Sometimes, the rush of the story doesn't force the character to make a choice, and they must make the decision on their own. That's when the trouble comes. That's when the writing can't get over the hump.

When we know a character in full, when we understand them well enough to write about them, we know the little things. Do they prefer chicken or fish? What's their favorite color? What's their go-to song during karaoke? These things may never come up, but we can jump at the opportunity to provide an answer. However, we also need to know what moves them, what draws them in, what makes them interesting enough to have their own story. And one of the most important things we need to know is what moves them from one scene to the next when nobody is chasing them through the story. When the decision is theirs alone, what do they do?

Often, this is difficult to write instinctively because a lot of examples around us are idle examples, or times when the world happens to us, not when we venture out and take a chance. The way to get over the hump is to think about what pushes us internally to make big decisions, to take major steps in life, when nobody is forcing us. We need to find our own inner force, and then look for something similar in our  character. Once we find that, the writing becomes that force pushing us past the hump and into our next scene. From there we continue.

Simply put, to truly know your character, know what moves them, what inspires them. What makes them laugh or cry? What sound might draw them into a room? What might cause them to take a day off of work, or to break from their habits? Know those things, and there won't be any humps to overcome.   

Writing Aside: Tom Hernandez

This morning I woke to, among other things, an email telling me that at 1:30 a.m., Tom Hernandez, co-founder of the WriteOn group in Joliet, passed away. In all honesty, I knew this email was coming. Everyone who knew Tom knew this email would show up. We had been preparing for this moment for a while, and yet when it arrived, I feel everyone realized they were never actually ready for it. Maybe we can never be entirely ready. And yet, at 1:30 this morning, Tom passed away.

As mentioned, this came as no surprise. A while ago, Tom notified us that he had a pretty vicious form of cancer. He would be fighting the good fight, but he acknowledged that this kind of cancer wasn't one to give up easily, and more often than not, it won the battle. This was a lot to take in, and the fight would in fact be real-life game of crack-the-whip for all parties involved. Eventually it reached a point of inevitability, and everyone found a way to process what the future would be. I took a slightly different spin on it. I made a decision that I would look at what I had learned from this horrible set of experiences, and that's how I will remember Tom.

We all know the classic action-thriller structure: Unwilling character brought into a struggle of immense proportions and forced to not only fight for their very existence against insurmountable odds, but to eventually rise up and be the hero, saving the world and walking away triumphant. It's pretty standard, and it's always good for some high-adventure fun. The classics, however, stand apart from the everyday action movie for one reason, and it has nothing to do with the outcome. Rather, it's all about how the story was told. Did we go into the Lord of the Rings books wondering if Sauron would ultimately conquer Middle Earth, leaving the civilized world in flames? Nope - we knew that good would prevail somehow. The real grabber, however, was the telling of the story, and how everything developed.

Full disclosure: When Tom first made his announcement, a part of me knew - knew - it wouldn't end well. I was supportive and rallied for his cause, but a part of me started preparing for that day I would get the email. However, a funny thing happened. Even though in my mind I knew how the story would end, I started paying more attention to how Tom lived those moments of his fight. I watched as he put forth goals to reach and different landmarks to achieve, how he took a special appreciation for what life he had, even as his very body tried taking it from him. Suddenly, I wasn't thinking about the end of the story, but rather the story unfolding in front of me. And it was fascinating. I learned about living from Tom's last few years of life, even though the story would soon end.

The final conclusion to me is this: We all have that end coming. Some day our friends and loved ones will get that email about us. Young or old, unexpectedly or foreseen, all of our stories end with that email. However, the part that counts the most, the only part that matters, is the story that comes before that final page. To the people seeing our story, we are the hero facing the insurmountable odds, fighting the good fight, and walking away having done the best we ever could. We inspire others around us to be better writers, better people, or just better. The end of the story will come, but people will remember the adventure, so it's up to us to make it a good one. 

Rest in peace, Tom.                

A Good Thing About Social Media

I will admit this, possibly to the surprise of my many former colleagues in the financial sector, but the writer in me misses my days back in economics. During that time, I would do a lot of writing, though a lot of it was actually reporting - discussing economic indicators, legislation, political shenanigans and so forth. I would report on those, analyze their impact, and then draw conclusions from everything I processed. If this is boring you already, you truly understand the broader world of economics.

Since this was reporting, the writing could be dry. Real dry. Like overdone toast in the Sahara dry. It was very business-like, very research-driven, and finding room for a personal voice was difficult. However, the writing was only half of the job. The other half was knowing what I wrote about so well that I could defend it like a doctoral dissertation, which also meant writing what I knew well enough to explain it to people who could throw questions at me from any and every direction - and often did.

Now, did it make a difference just how I wrote about the correlation between the Spanish peseta and the Portuguese escudo during the late 1980s? Not really. What had the biggest impact was being able to sit there, face senior management, and take fire from everything from currency discussions to whether or not that's the proper spelling of escudo. (My guess is few of you know the spelling for sure and even fewer care.) This was a constant test of my mettle, every question a make-or-break challenge. I assure you that all of those questions made me a better economist, sometimes even when I didn't have an answer because it got me thinking more about the subject.

Now here's where this all ties into social media. I have often extolled the benefits of writing workshops,  in part because it provides that same question-and-discussion format that makes things interesting. Well, one thing in particular that social media offers is about a bajillion pages for beginning writers, aspiring writers, creative writers, and all other kinds of writers. These forums have people posting totally random questions about voice, perspective, PoV shifts, how to structure a story, and so on ad infinitum. More importantly, responses come from everywhere. These aren't just dialogues with one board moderator, but with an entire community of writers, some of whom have the exact same questions, and plenty who can offer their own insights and their experiences. The best part? It's all there for you to jump into. If you have an answer, throw it into the thread. If you have a question, post it and let the answers pour in. And, of course, read the comment threads (though at your own risk - comment threads are notoriously volatile) and find things you like.

Now, the writer pages on Facebook might not be as exciting as the peseta:escudo relationship back when those were real currencies, but that's for you to decide. I've been writing for over twenty years, and I still find questions that challenge me. Furthermore, I often answer peoples' questions in a way that make me really think about my form and process before I open my big mouth. It's just like an interrogation by senior management, except there's less money on the table. 

The advice part of this piece: Hop onto social media and just join a few writing groups. I prefer Aspiring Writers United and Fiction Writers, but a simple group search under "writing" or "creativity" should provide a wealth of groups to work with. (And again, be careful with the comment thread. Seriously.)       

Making It A Special Day

As most people in the continental US have heard, a broad swathe of real estate across the country will be witness to a total solar eclipse (weather permitting). This most impressive of events rarely occurs in this country, and won't happen again in totality here for a few decades. Therefore, people are taking the day off, getting out their road maps (Google Maps at least), and figuring out just how to see this spectacle. Out by my place, we will not have eclipse totality (I think they say 94%), so a lot of people are driving two hours south to get the experience in full. They are making a real day out of it.

This kind of event - a rarity indeed - is one that will provide writers with plenty of inspiration for short stories, poems, essays, and whatever they want to create. I expect the eclipse will be followed by a wave of creativity hitting the feeds (along with a lot of people asking, "Why do my eyes hurt?"), followed by a creative lull. No surprise here. However, being inspired by this celestial event is the low-hanging fruit of creativity. Still just as tasty, but there are plenty to choose from. I would argue that every day can be eclipse day if you know where to look.

A poet friend of mine got the opportunity to kill some time in the Albuquerque airport waiting for her flight. If there is something that is the exact opposite of the wonder and awe of a total eclipse, it is probably the Albuquerque airport. So there she sat with nothing to do but listen to nearby musicians play for passers-by while waiting for her flight. Some people might bury themselves in a book, others might catch a quick nap. She looked around, listened to the music, and had her eclipse moment.

As a creative, she took in what was around her, what she had experienced during her time in New Mexico, and all the little things most people take for granted. She let it sink in, she found the inspiration (or maybe the inspiration found her) and she could not help but to write a poem about Albuquerque. By searching through that moment and all its little elements, it became more than just a day, it became special and unique. Everything came together and *BOOM* a poem happened.

Normally, I would present that poem for all to enjoy, but it's not mine; it's hers. However, I took it upon myself to realize that any given day can have some feature worth writing about - you just need to look. Sometimes you just need to feel what is around you, or see it all from new eyes. I mean, come on - Albuquerque? If that can inspire, anything can inspire. It just needs to be seen, heard, and ultimately felt. The writing is just the end product.

Since Monday will be Eclipse Day for me, my next post will not be until April 12th. Enjoy this natural wonder, use proper eye protection, and after all is said and done, maybe write something about it.            

An April Fool's Day Don't (for writers)

It's April 1st, the day people love to dread, or just dread. People find ways to fool and deceive those around them in interesting, mischievous, and sometimes plain old cruel ways. Maybe it's something as simple as unplugging your co-worker's keyboard while they are away from their desk, or sending out a silly memo that's obviously meant to be a joke. On this day we are all participants somehow - often unwillingly - and hopefully we learn to take things lightly, let the foolishness wash off of us, and go about our business, feeling a little lighter and carefree for the experience.

A warning to writers: Readers do not take pranks so well.

Now, part of writing a clever story involves playing a game with the reader. In the classic-twist-at-the-end story, it is revealed that something the reader assumed was in fact not true, or that something they took for granted was entirely different. In a way, this is playing a joke on the reader by cleverly leading them down a particular path just to say, "Gotcha!" at the end. It requires a certain amount of craft and skill to do this, and it definitely takes practice. However, there are right ways and wrong ways to do it.

If you and I were walking down the street and I suddenly punched you in the shoulder then shouted, "Ha! Gotcha!" that wouldn't be much of a joke. It would be a surprise, and not what anyone expected, but there's no humor there. Along a similar line, you have that thing kids do when they tell you to look over there, the when you do, they say, "Ha! Made you look!" Well, that much is true, and it played upon my expectation of seeing something, but it isn't exactly funny after the age of nine.

Too often, writers fall into the same trap. It can come in many forms, but they all have the equivalent effect of, "Ha! Made you look!" The writer creates a narrative, then it turns out that it was all just a dream, and the character returns to their life. The character pursues something that turns out to be nonexistent, and goes back to their life none the wiser. And the worst one - the character breaks from the story to have some sort of experience, then returns to the story and the experience never comes up again. These are the literary equivalent of failed April Fool's pranks and should be avoided at all costs.

So how do we know we are writing ourselves into a cheap little joke? The proof should be in the results, as in, there should be results or some form of consequences from whatever occurred. Think about the three examples in the previous paragraph. They all conclude with the character being unchanged, having just wasted time doing something that had no real impact on them. If the character isn't affected, why would the reader be affected? We have to approach these stories and think about how the reader will see a change (or a deliberate denial) in the world around them. The story needs to be impactful; it needs to make a difference. It doesn't need to be a profound statement, but the character at the end should be different in some striking manner. Like the example I mentioned at the end of the first paragraph in this post, if we feel a little lighter and carefree for the experience, then it was worth having. 

So, for anything you write, and for any joke you pull, make sure it has some intention, purpose, and casts a new light on some part of the reader's world. That's the difference between a good joke and just saying, "Made you look!"              

A Tribute to All Writers

I will be the first to say it has been a rough week. The most trying part of it has been long bouts of introspection, covering various eras of my life. And as many of you might have guessed, given the events of my last post, I have been thinking a lot about writing: what role it plays in my life, how it has shaped me, and where I am in this long writer's journey. Truth be told, I didn't come up with answers. If anything, I ended up with more questions.

However, it did put me into a mindset about just what writing is all about. What it does to us, what it does for us, and how it can live long beyond our time. I've had these thoughts before, and, as usual, I wrote about them. The result of this reflection was a piece that I read at the most recent writers' meeting - the Tinley Park League of Aspiring Writers. A few people requested copies of my work, then a few people suggested I simply post it on my blog so everyone could appreciate it.

So, without further ado, here is the piece I wrote about a writer's connection to writing, and all of its meaning:

It Continues

I am proud to say I am a crappy writer. Some people may protest and try to build my esteem, but let me offer context. When I say I am a crappy writer, this is because I now know so many adjectives that are far worse than merely crappy, and I have risen above those. In short, I have learned over the years to not chart myself on the goals I want to reach, but rather the milestones I have already passed. In doing that, my journey ahead is not anchored by one specific point, but rather an endless series of amazing paths leading toward a beautiful horizon. I am not tethered in my journey, but rather freed to move forth. And I continue.

If I have learned one thing from this journey of writing, it is that every word we place on paper expands us as people, elevating our existence to something greater, something unimaginable but wonderfully achievable. We start this adventure by learning words. Then, by sheer force of will, we start saying these words. They become the building blocks for greater ideas, and we grow. We create. And if we are wise, we push this process forward. We continue.

Eventually, we learn to write these words, each one leaving a footprint in the sands of time. Our ideas flow out of our bodies, taking hold first in voice, then on paper, then in the minds of others. Our conscience expands outside the boundaries of our heart and mind, and into the world. We reach other people, engage with them, take in their presence, and like the spark of life itself, our words expand into their hearts and minds. Our ideas live in others, taking on their own lives and purposes. They continue.

This is the power of the written word – to be a continuation of everything we are and that we can be. As these words nurture our being, our soul expands beyond the confines of our bodies, casting itself forth and touching others. It reaches other souls, merges with their passions and ideas, radiating out like waves in a pond, but getting stronger with every ripple. Our words become this pulse, this sound, this ever-growing signal of our presence. Those words continue.

With our written words, with our ideas, we can touch the world, we can reach the hearts of everything in existence. Even after my hands stop typing these ideas, the words will carry me through the ether, resonating with everyone they touch. Those thoughts, those ideas never end, carrying themselves through time itself, transmitting our deepest existence into the universe. It feeds into something so vast, so incredible, that our little bodies can’t comprehend its grandiosity. But those words, those ideas, that little part of us that we send out into the world becomes a part of this everlasting presence of the Universe forever. That part of us becomes part of existence’s indelible fingerprint through time.

It always continues.