So What Is a Writer, Really?

What is a writer?

Are you ready for this? I'm going to blow your mind.

A writer is one who writes.

Take note of the present tense, as it is the most important part of that definition.

I think most aspiring writers have adopted the mindset that "writer" is an adjective written on our hearts from the day we were born. It means deep thinker, and storyteller, and wordsmith. It almost always means lover of books, and words, and ideas. It can mean poet or newsman or novelist. In popular thought it rarely coincides with "mathematician" or even "able to add things." But we view it as irrevocably and undeniably a part of who we are. Whatever else may happen, our identity is firmly lodged in two things: "I am human," and "I am writer." Nothing removes that.

This, I think, is wrong.

One who writes. That's it. That's all there is to that definition. It doesn't have to mean published. It doesn't even have to mean good. But it connotes a necessity of persistence.

A writer is not "one who wrote while in high school, but recently has been focusing on other projects." A writer is not "one who got good grades in English class and has a brilliant idea for a book." A writer is not "one who dreams wistfully of becoming J.K. Rowling/J.R.R. Tolkien/C.S. Lewis/K.A. Applegate/Robert Heinlein/Patrick Rothfuss/what-have-you."

It can have those things. But they're all useless to you unless you're doing. Wanting to write, having written, trained in writing—these are all good things. Wrote a novel once. Have a great idea for a book. Love writing.

Those are excellent, in fact. But they are useless to us unless we are writing.

Someone who claims to be an athlete but never sets foot in a gym is not an athlete. A carpenter who never touches wood is not a carpenter. A practitioner who doesn't practice is a liar or a fool. The practice—doing the thing—is built into the word.

You may feel that writing is a thing etched into your soul. I wouldn't be surprised if it is. Communication is one of the great human purposes. It's how we brush up against the soul of other humans.

But what use is a thing in your soul if you never pour it out through your hands?

*

I must be honest with you: I'm dogmatic on this because I can't afford not to be.

By my own stringent definition, I've not been a dedicated writer for three months. When I wrote the 64-Day Hypocrite, I fully intended to get back to writing. To get back in touch with the wild thrill of making things up and writing them down. And, to an extent, I have. But not yet to the same degree I had in January. It's hard to gain the momentum back. I know it's possible. I just haven't had the requisite willpower to do it, and now school has fallen on me like a granite block and I can't wriggle out long enough to scribble a single meaningful sentence. All my creative energies go toward school and people. Even this blog post is an assignment.

So, in a sense, I have an excuse, and that's the most dangerous place in the world.

I can't afford to have excuses for very long. Even less can I permit myself to buy into the idea that we're defined as writers by our passions instead of where our passions drive us. If I shift the definition of the word so that it will always include me, no matter what I do with my time, then I have no need for relentless creativity. I'm still a "writer" if I lay in bed all day and do nothing. I'm still a "writer" when I while away my hours on video games. In short, folks, I would have no need to DO anything.

That's what matters, really. It's not what you are. It's what you do. It's where your time goes. It's where your passions lead you. You can make claims all you like, the way I've done for so many years—being a hobbyist writer talking about how awesome things were going to be when I finished the writing that I wasn't really doing, instead of a dedicated and purposeful maker. That's the difference. That's the knife edge separating fulfillment and bitterness: while self-important hobbyists wax eloquent of the things they'll do when they have the time, the ones who care enough to succeed are busy doing it.

What are your thoughts, reader? What is a writer, really?

The (In)Complete List of Tips to Stay Creative

One of the most miserable questions with writing is the inevitable one of creativity: "How do I stay creative? How do I avoid writer's block? How can I keep writing?"

Personally, I'm of the opinion that writer's block is just creative fatigue (or sometimes fear), and the best way to keep writing is just to grit your teeth and move ahead—it's easier to edit a poorly-written page than an empty one—but even so, it's good for creative muscles to stay limber. So I'm gathering as many tips for staying creative as I can, and leaving them here. It will probably grow. For now, I'm organizing it like an exercise regimen, because it's the closest metaphor I can think of.

Let's get straight to it, then, shall we?*

Stretches

Cramps happen in the body, but they can happen creatively, too. Limberness can help prevent stiffness in your creative output.

• Make lists.
• Make charts.
• Make maps.
• Make diagrams.
• Sketch things.
• Have a way of keeping track of ideas, even if it's just jotting them down on your cell phone or in a notebook. (Actually, notebooks are great if you're into the romanticized writer trope.) This isn't initially a way of getting great ideas, at least not at first. But it's helpful in the long run. If you don't treat any ideas as worthwhile, you train yourself not to have any more of them. Quantity's no guarantee of eventual quality, but it can certainly help.
• Think deeply about things—even silly things (especially silly things). Why do you believe what you believe? Why does culture function this way and not that way? What would happen if—?
• Entertain every idea to the fullest extent you can manage. Even if the idea amounts to nothing, you've made your ideation more flexible and robust.
• People-watch in the least creepy manner available to you. Make up stories about what they're doing, where they're going, and why—always why.
• Surround yourself with creative people. Make them your friends. Bonus points if they're actually fun to be around.

Diet

For a while, I thought I was really good at this. Put simply, I'm an art glutton. I can watch TV all day if you let me. I sucked, though, at thinking about the art I kept ingesting. There was no consideration in my consumption. That's crucial. You can't just watch things or read things and expect it to make you a better writer. As in love, so in art: engagement is a big deal. (That's a horrid joke and I'm ashamed of it.)

• Ingest art you love. What about it appeals to you? Why does it resonate? Try to see past the curtain. What's going on behind the scenes?
• Consider art you hate. (Don't do too much of this or it might seep in.) Why don't you like it? What about it conflicts with your own artistic sensibilities?
• Analyze successful books, movies, or shows. Pick them apart mentally and with friends.
• Try to think in archetypes. Break stories down to their tiniest parts and see what they really are. A good way to do this is to transpose stories. "This is about a football team in west Texas, but what if it's just the same as King Arthur's court?" Alternately, check out this compilation about how Taken and Finding Nemo are almost the same movie, in a way.
• Find some music you can listen to without becoming distracted. I'm partial to ambient music, like Embers, the Album Leaf, Explosions in the Sky, or Port Blue, but that may not be your style. Peers of mine will often listen to music that reflects the mood they're trying to write in, be that slightly frenetic or folky or stately or whatever. The key is that it not distract you from what you're writing.

Workout

Once you're limber and well-fed, the really tough part of actually doing stuff comes around. This is where most of us get a bit gun-shy (or maybe that's just me). It's necessary, though. We must work at it. It's not enough to be a creative genius or an incisive thinker if you never do anything with it.

• Write.
• Keep writing.
• Take a break—but try to do this only after you've actually done something. Creativity is like a muscle. It's good to rest it after a workout, but if all you do is rest it, nothing gets done.
• Write some more.
• Get feedback from some of the creative friends you made back in Staying Limber.
• Keep writing.
• Finish things.
• Edit the finished things.
• Edit some more.
• Believe in what you've made.
• Get more feedback.
• Remember: no one is obligated to care about your story, so it's your job to make it as brilliant as it can possibly be. Edit some more.
• Stay focused.
• Write.

Hazards

Nomming on the Galactus Burger with an XXL packet of fries and a 72-oz. bucket of sugar water, augmented by the Double Death by Chocolate Shake, is explicitly forbidden in the codes of exercisers everywhere (even though none of the above items technically exists). Same thing with creativity: there are some things which simply aren't wise to do. They'll gum up the works hard and fast.

• Time-waster sites. I won't list them here (since that would only give us more things to use for time-wasting), but it's not as if they're hard to spot. Odds are good that as soon as you read "Habits to Avoid," you thought of one. One helpful tool for preventing Internet time-wasting is the Stay Focused Google add-on.
• Most video games. While I won't deny they can be fun, and even sometimes a form of storytelling, most of them are a numbing agent. They're doing you no good.
• Mindless television.
• Beating yourself up. Self-hatred is a pretty standard human problem, but indulging in it isn't going to do you any good.
• Hating what you make. Also nearly universal problem, but a terrible habit to keep. If you start hating what you make, take a step back from it.
• Shooting down ideas for not being "good enough." Doing this trains your brain never to think of any ideas. Play with any idea that crosses your mind.
• Stopping in the middle of something. This is, by far, the hardest one for me. In my entire life, I've finished exactly 1 (one) longterm project. It was 332 pages, single-spaced, and it was awful, but it was finished. Finishing things is a critical habit to have.

Miscellaneous Encouragement

Because, well...it's not a perfect metaphor....

• Love your characters.
• Persevere.
• Check out this infographic.
• Also, look at this (scroll right).

*If you happen to be a creative type, but not the writing creative type, good for you! Parts of this aren't quite going to be geared toward you, but in general if you replace "write" with "make stuff," you should do just fine.

The 64-Day Hypocrite

Some of you may have noticed a general theme in the blog of late—a sort of general purposefulness that it really lacked several months ago. Among these is the overall productivity of it. I've written more on the blog in the last two months than I have for a long time. Part of that's due to a class (I'm required to do it) and part of it's due to the excitement I started feeling about five months ago.

In October or November, I applied to go to a writing conference happening in February. I was so excited about the idea that I started brainstorming and outlining and (most importantly) writing for three solid months. It got pretty crazy—during January, I pumped out about 2000 words a day. And I was enjoying it.

There's nothing quite like the languor after doing things you love to do. Added to that was the feeling of completeness that comes when you remember that you do love it, and why. In short, it was a good month.

By mid-February, I had nearly 95,000 words of a manuscript. When I first outlined the book, I anticipated something close to 100,000 words in total; by the time I reached 95k, it was looking more and more like the book would round out at 150,000. I was okay with that, though. I could handle doing more of this. With the resurgence of schoolwork and social commitments, it had become harder, but I was willing and ready. Another 50,000 words was nothing.

*

After the conference, the writing stopped. My momentum deadened, and my zeal to complete the project petered out. I became more concerned with other, ostensibly more important things: homework, sleep, reading, video games. I kept telling myself I would return to the project and finish it, because that's what a writer has to do.

About 30 days after I'd stopped, I returned to the project and realized there were a number of things I needed to hammer out. Following an old personal tradition, I restarted the project, beginning with pre-writing. What followed was a long period of vacillating over fiddly world-building details, like the history of the setting and the mechanics of its magic, and vain attempts at character sketches. I'm not good at character, so sketches are an important step in the pre-writing.

So I hacked out the kinks in the magic system. I drafted possible character types, and supplemented those by ingesting really good character drama (read: watching the first few episodes of Friday Night Lights). And time passed, and I didn't write.

Day 40 came and went, and I didn't write.

Day 47 came, and I noticed, and I said, "I'm definitely not going to go fifty whole days without getting back to it."

(Because I needed to, and I knew that—cognitively, at least. I didn't know it in my gut anymore. I'd gone too long without it, so my body forgot ardor in favor of languor.)

Day 50 came, and I wrote...and then stopped. I gained no momentum. I couldn't have written much more than 500 words.

Day 51 came and went, and I didn't write.

*

As of this writing, I've gone about 64 days without returning to that fierce, reckless creative passion. That's 64 days of pure, stupid hypocrisy, because I've been pretty dogmatic about the idea that writer's block is an excuse, and a really, really poor one at that.

So I'm taking a more optimistic view. I'm not blocking up. I'm stocking up.

After a period of intense activity, the body must rest. So, too, it is with creating, I think, because creativity is a muscle. Going and going and going—and then going some more—is not feasible at my level. I'm not an Olympian of this craft. Not yet.

So this is a rest period, and it's temporary. I cannot allow it to be permanent. That is within my power. Continuing in the lackluster boredom—this paltry excuse for creativity—is not permitted.

Because I have found a thing man searches for his entire life: joyful effort. "Making things up and writing them down," as Gaiman says, is the first thing I've found that makes me itch.

This is the crucial thing. This is the heart of it. I have written out of shallow pleasure, out a desire to be admired, and out of a need to validate my childhood hobby. None suffice. They cannot sustain creativity, because there is nothing undergirding them—no skeleton, no true fire. They are shaped (vaguely) like the true thing, but the longer I look at them, the more they are revealed to be grotesqueries. They are not willing to endure when creation is boring, or when it is hard to create.

No, writing must come from the central place, from the nucleus of the impulse, purely from a love for creating things. It cannot be swayed by storm or, more deadly, by stillness. It will be work, and it will be lovely.

What now? That's simple.

Write.

Why Wattpad Gives Me Hope (Lots and Lots and Lots)

Some days, the Internet is just awesome.

Some of you may have heard of Wattpad, the website where undiscovered writers can fling their stories out into the ether and hope for general approval. Others might have heard of Jukepop, which is sort of the same thing except with serialized fictions. In general, these sorts of sites cater to a very particular demographic: that of people who think of themselves as writers but just can't buy a book deal. (Oh, just kidding, the Christian Writers Guild has made that possible. ZING.)

I've mentioned these kinds of people before: the ones who talk a pretty good game about all the writing they're doing, but don't tend to, you know, actually write. The ones who treat an ancient and noble artistic pursuit as a hobby that anybody can do, because...really, how hard could it be?

The thing that I often miss when I rant about pretentious hacks is that, sometimes, there are diamonds in the rough. Every author has to start somewhere, and more often than not they start as pretentious hacks. How could they not, after all? Writing—and, more directly, making your writing public—requires an interesting degree of blind arrogance. Making your work public implies that you think the public might actually like the things you've written. Putting your work out there, even if it is just a website that caters to narcissism, is a step in the right direction. Heaven knows that writing you keep hidden in your desk drawer isn't going to change any lives.

Especially since, sometimes, self-publishing your work can pay off.

Beth Reeks (pen name Beth Reekles) is a 17-year-old writer who published a teen romance on Wattpad. She did what a number of authors have advised since the dawn of the written word: write what she wanted to read. She'd grown tired of vampires, werewolves, and fallen angels; she just wanted a teenage romance. So she made one, and she made it well, and it earned her a number of fans on Wattpad.

And then Random House heard about her, and now she has a book deal.

I only get to say this once because I hate needless repetition, so I'm going to say it as loudly as I can in typed words:

THAT'S AWESOME
THAT IS TOTALLY WICKED AWESOME

A 17-year-old kid getting published? Getting fiction published? That's the stuff of legends, folks. I just want to shake this girl's hand. What a champ.

It's stories like these that give me hope for writers and for starving artists in general. See, Barnes and Noble is on its way out. Borders is dead. Some nutcase author wants libraries to die. In short, the world of the printed word is in some pretty significant turmoil. Nobody's quite sure how everything is going to shake out. Will the next generation even care about stories when they can view all their stuff through neurological implants? Now that we've mastered video technology, are words even relevant anymore? Can the world of literature ever bounce back from Twilight?

The short answer is...yeah. Duh.

The world is changing, but this isn't the biggest change the world's undergone. It's just the biggest one we've been alive for. (Every wave seems huge when you're inside it.)

Maybe printed books die out and maybe they don't. (Here's hoping they don't.) And maybe the publishing industry is going to convulse and explode (which I'm not entirely sure is undeserved). And maybe my grandkids will think of books the way I think of vinyl records: quaint and romantic, but obsolete.

I doubt it. But, even if the printed page dies out; even if the book publishing industry goes belly-up; even if the libraries vanish....

The stories live on, and the storytellers keep appearing.

The Internet and its utterly public forum gives me hope for this. These days, all you need are 1000 people who desperately want you to keep making art...and you can. Artists have always survived on the charity of people who like their stuff; it's only in the era of Indelible Walt Disney Copyright that we've gotten the idea that "artist" isn't a proper job because only a few people get to make a lot of money at it.

Until the world settles, all we can do is keep on hoping. And keep on making good art.





What are your thoughts on the imminent death throes of Barnes and Noble, or the 17-year-old wunderkind publishing a book because of the Internet? Sound off in the comments!

Discovery Writing with an Outline: How to Grow the Parthenon (Just Add Water!)

According to some successful writers, there are two kinds of writing: architecture and gardening. Architect writers outline their plots meticulously before they put pen to paper. Gardener (or discoverer) writers are sometimes called "pantsers" because they write "by the seat of their pants." Both have their strong points—architect writers typically have room for more intricate plots, while gardener writers tend toward powerful ideas that they carry out well.

Both have some pretty serious shortcomings, though. Architects struggle with what some people call "railroading," where they become so desperate for their original ideas to bear out that they force them to happen, even at the expense of character. Gardener writers, on the other hand, can often struggle with their endings. It's particularly difficult if they're young, inexperienced writers: drawing every single plot thread together into a cohesive whole is tough to do, especially if the plot has wandered around quite a bit.

I suspect, though, that the two can be balanced. Steven James, Stephen King, and Patrick Rothfuss—all very talented, very dedicated gardeners—might disagree with me, and since they're way more successful than I am, you feel free to go listen to their thoughts. But here's the thing: James, King, Rothfuss, and a number of other gardener writers are geniuses. Their subconscious does most of the heavy lifting for them. Also, they don't necessarily spit on knowing where your story is going—just on planning out every single moment of it.

I propose, though, that—as the writer—you're allowed to know at least a little about how your story's going to end. No need to wait until the climactic reveal, right?

So, without further ado, here are the Three Steps to Growing the Parthenon (or, How Outliners Can Be a Little More Discovery-Oriented).

(I'm bad at titles.)

1) You don't need to know every step to know the destination.

A common misconception about outlining—or, at least, one that I held to pretty tightly for most of my life—is that it needs to handle every single event in the story. Every detail of it, from the opening scene to the last and every bit of backstory, character interaction, and stunning reveal in between.

As far as I can tell, that's just not true at all.

Knowing every single step of the story is wildly unnecessary, and frankly harmful to creativity. You've effectively drawn a box for your story, out of which you must not step. As Steven James is fond of saying, "Story trumps structure." Don't feel pressured to map out everything that will happen in the story; usually, knowing what's going on will help.

Suggested Fix: keep your outlining to the bare minimum (if you outline at all). Know how the story ends (mostly), know how your characters will be affected (mostly), and maybe know some of what will happen in between, but don't feel any great pressure to know every single detail. That's absurd.

2) Characters come first.

This was the hardest truth for me to learn. I'll be honest: I'm not really good with creating characters out of thin air. I don't have a whole crowd of people living in my head like some writers claim to. So, when I have to populate my stories, I tend toward making semi-sentient machines: they have a function in the plot, but they rarely have personalities, desires, or secrets of their own. They're an extension of the story I've made for them.

That's bad.

My inability to smite the earth and pull characters forth from the ether is my biggest weakness. (It's not just a writing struggle either; I'm not very good at understanding people.) Consequently, I need to keep forcing myself to write characters who exist independently of the story they're in; they're not just wave functions of the plot. The characters are the heart and soul of any story. Story robots don't engage readers.

Suggested Fix: let your characters behave as they want to. Give them foibles, quirks, failures, dreams. You can always make characters more realistic.

3) No outline is perfect.

Stephen King says that "outlining is a great way to immortalize a bad idea." Outliners will often get way too attached to their original outlines, casting them in stone rather than ink. Instead of letting the story be fluid and organic, it becomes forced, rigid, unyielding, and—inevitably—disappointing.

Here's a quick comparison to get across the idea: imagine that you've met someone you find interesting, likable, and at least smart enough to hold up a conversation. You decide that you'd like to get to know this person, and maybe develop a long-lasting friendship with them. The relationship will naturally consist of a sort of give-and-take; that's how all relationships work, after all. You'll jump in with expectations, and gradually discover that a number of things you initially took for granted are, actually, very wrong. This person is way more complex than you ever gave them credit for.

Now imagine that, instead of letting the person subvert your expectations, you demanded that they be exactly what you expected on your first meeting. Instead of complex and deep and interesting, they become an extension of you; they're just another thing you've conquered.

Stories should never be something you hack out easily. They ought to come at cost. There's an inherent struggle in all writing that makes it worthwhile. Without the struggle, it rings hollow. It doesn't feel right.

Suggested Fix: let the story direct itself. Give it a few guidelines, perhaps even a few road signs, but don't ever make it adhere unquestioningly to your first thought. Stories evolve in the mind; that's how it's always worked.

So, dear reader, how about you? Are you more a discovery writer or an architect? How do you balance plot, with all its intricacies, and characters, with all their needs and depths?