Don’t listen to experts. Be yourself.

 

Don’t listen to experts.  Be yourself.

If you’ve been paying attention, you know I am retired from the Army.  Many years and several “wars’ ago, I was in an Army hospital and got an idea for a short story.  I went into an empty doctor’s office one Sunday, found a typewriter…you remember those…big bulky black things with keys and a roller…and some paper and sat down and typed out the story.  I had taken typing in high school and like most of the males in the class, barely passed it.  I had not used a typewriter in years.  But I pecked out the story one letter at a time, made some strikeovers and left a few misspelled words because I could not find a dictionary and the typewriter did not have a spellcheck key.

When I was satisfied that it was a work of literary art, I put a cover letter on it which basically said: “Here’s my story.  Send money.  Love, Paul” and mailed it off.  I had nothing else to say.   I had never sold anything because I had never written anything that I thought I could sell before, however there was that incident in high school, but I’ll save that for another time.  To make matters worse, I could not find any carbon paper…look it up…so I did not have a copy of the story.  Blind faith? Stupid?  Naive?  All of the above.

But guess what?  Several weeks later I got a nice letter from the magazine saying they were going to publish it and in the envelope, was a check for $80.00. I immediately took my wife and daughter out to celebrate and we bought a dog house.

A couple of days later I told a friend about it and he asked if I read and followed any of the writer’s magazines.  I misunderstood and thought he said rider’s magazines and he was talking about motorcycles.  When we cleared it up and I found out about the magazines dedicated to helping writers I bought them every month, read them cover to cover and found out I was doing everything wrong.  I didn’t query editors.  I didn’t have a list of previous publications for my cover letter.  I could not offer tear sheets.  I didn’t count the words.  And for eighteen months while I tried to do everything right, I sold absolutely NOTHING.  NADA. ZIP. ZINGO.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying don’t follow the rules, but be yourself when you do.  Books and magazines exist for one reason and that’s because people buy then.  They may buy them for the pictures, for the ads, to read at the beach, on the airplane, or like Playboy for the articles.  But you and I supply the words for them.  They want admit it, but they actually need us. Don’t get so caught up in reading how-to books and articles that you are more concerned with the how-to than the do.  Each one you read will give you a different slant on what works, how to write, reach and obtain an agent or editor or where to send your work, and many contradict the last one you read.

No one knows your short story, magazine article, novel or screenplay better than you and if you don’t put the words on the page you’ll never know what someone else thinks about it.  Be yourself and find a place in the yard for that new dog house you’re gonna buy.

ARE YOU A PLOTTER OR A PLODDER?

ARE YOU A PLOTTER OR A PLODDER?

Are you one of those people who, prior to starting to write anything longer than a postcard, plans everything you’re going to say, when to say it and how it’s supposed to sound when its read?  How about the one who has a general idea of what they’re going to write, how it’s supposed to sound and where they plan to end?  Behind Door Number are the Plotters.  Door Number hides the Plodders.

I’m happy to say, I rest comfortably behind Door Number Two.  I get an idea for a new novel or screenplay and I massage it in my head for a while and when I’m ready, I sit down and begin the process.  To me, it’s like living in Miami and one day deciding to drive to Seattle.  I take a look at the map, maybe even do a Mapquest search and see what they recommend.  When I back out of my driveway in Miami, my destination….at that time…is Seattle. How I got there will be determined by looking back over my shoulder when I see the Welcome to Seattle sign. I will no doubt remember that wrong turn I took in Atlanta and how I had to backtrack all the way to Dallas from Oklahoma City. But I’ll also remember the character I met in Richmond when I had a flat tire. If you know anything about the US map, you can see I’m all over the place, but I did finish my journey in Seattle. Unless, of course, I changed my mind and wanted to finish in Anchorage. We Plodders can do that.  Plotters…not so much.

Don’t get me wrong.  There’s nothing wrong with either method.  It’s whatever works best for you and helps you get the job done. For me, plotting would take the mystery out of writing.  That’s not to say you can’t write a mystery if you plot, but my point is sometimes I sit down and have absolutely NO IDEA what I’m going to write about at the moment.  If it’s a novel, I’ll read over what I did the day before to catch up and then…who knows.  I find myself in some of the strangest situations that in my wildest imagination I never pre-planned.  I’m doing the third book in a mystery series now and today I found myself in a coffee shop in Ho Chi Minh City talking to a priest.  Or at least I think he is a priest.  He hasn’t shared his background with me yet.  A Plotter would probably never meet him and if they did, they’d know where he went to college why he entered the priesthood and the age of his grandmother when she died.  If I need that info, I’m sure he will tell me before I leave and go to wherever it is the next day’s writing takes me.

I take writing very serious. I mean, how presumptions of us to think that someone actually cares about what we have to say and then to top it off, they spend time or money to find out what it is. We owe them their money’s worth.  If they come back for seconds, you know that your method works for you and them.  If they need a roadmap, give it to them.  If they want to ramble along the highways and byways with a Plodder like me, I say, “Welcome aboard.”  It’s like the airline pilot who came on the PA system as the plane was crossing the Pacific.  “I have good news and bad news.  The bad news is our navigation system is out and I have no idea where we are going.  The good news is we have a two hundred mile and hour tail wind and which means we’re going to get there in a hell of a hurry.”

Let the wind guide you to the destination, wherever it may be.  Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a solid gold razor I have to give to the Priest in my book.  Really….

Where are you when the page is blank?

Sure Happy Its Thursday or S.H.I.T by any other name.

When I was in the Army, I had a boss one time who was always asking his staff to come up with ideas.  In case you haven’t been in the military, that’s how it’s done.  Some senior officer will say, “I need a plan in case we get attacked by giant sea turtles.  Or the Emperor of Botsalumba, gets nukes and wants to use one.”  The staff comes up with the idea and the general gets the credit.  But back to my old boss.  If we had an idea later on he’d say, “Where were you when the page was blank?”

So, my question this week is:  Where are you when the page is blank?  What do you have to do to get words on the page?  It doesn’t matter if it in front of a computer, an old typewriter or a stack of yellow legal pads.  The pages are blank and you have to come up with the idea.  I have a special place where I get mine but I’ll save that as a teaser so you’ll read to the bottom.

If you get your idea from today’s news, you’re at least a year late.  There was a tragic shooting in Las Vegas recently.  Want to write about a deranged person who shoots up a crowd?  Too late.  It’s been done.  What about a natural disaster that wipes an island almost off the map?  Five years too late.  That’s not to say you can’t use those as the subject, but you’ve got to change it and to do that you have to do your research.  What is your competition?  What was the focus of those books or films?  How long ago?  Sale record?

I’ll be the first to admit if you’re a writer, you (and I) are about a half-bubble off level.  We see things differently.  We hear voices.  We listen to them, hell, we even talk to them some time.  When a normal person asks if the glass is half full or half empty, we wonder who stole the water and if they poisoned the part that’s left.  That’s the start of an IDEA!  Have you ever had a dream that was so realistic that you made notes the next morning and used it in a story?  I have.  And I sold the story.  Where did that idea come from?  No idea, but it came and that’s the point.  Be open to almost anything.  Read everything you can from cereal boxes to headlines in the check-out counter at the grocery store.  Ideas are everywhere.  You can’t copyright an idea and you can’t sell it.  Sit down and write.  Remember not too long ago two guys were sitting around and one asked the other, “I wonder what would happen if a tornado picked up a bunch of sharks and dropped them….”

Where do I get my ideas?  I belong the Idea of Month Club and once a month I get a box from Snake Navel, Arkansas containing thirty ideas…unless the month has 31 days or it’s February.

SURE HAPPY IT’S THURSDAY (S.H.I.T.)

If we can have Thank Goodness It’s Friday (T.G.I.F.), why shouldn’t I be able to have Sure Happy It’s Thursday, (S.H.I.T.)?  Well, no body says I can’t so this is the first of my weekly blogs which will be known as…well, you get it.

First, let me tell you a little about myself.  I’m a retired Army officer and I have a second career as a writer.  I have two mystery series in print from Black Opal Books and eight feature films produced from scripts I wrote.  For the last ten years I have been teaching Writing for TV, Films and Radio at the University of West Florida. That has come to an end in the last month since I left Florida and it’s hurricanes behind and moved to a small town in Georgia.

Why am I writing a blog and why do I assume anyone other than my family and few other old retired farts I knew in the Army will even read it?  Because I have things to say, questions to ask and occasionally some serious advice about writing novels and screenplays that you may find interesting.

Since I have sold both novels and screenplays I actually know what I’m talking about.  I’m big on credibility.  If you are giving advice, you need to know what you’re talking about.  If you’re teaching a class, you need to know at least as much and probably more than the people who are sitting, looking at you and taking notes.

I have never tried a blog before, but I did write a newspaper column once a week for two years one time, so I do know how to face and conquer a deadline.

On this blog I’ll share some pet peeves with you like: why do I always get behind a group of five people on the sidewalk who are walking five abreast? And who keeps coming into my hotel rooms and folding the toilet paper into little points on the roll and why?  How about when you attend a writer’s conference and meet an agent or editor, pitch to them and they ask for your project and once you send it you never hear from them again?  Can you turn your novel into a script?

I’ve got more questions, but I’ll save them for the next edition of SHIT.

Check out my books at: amazon.com/author/paulsinor

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