A fast from distraction, or, why I’m quitting T.V.

Hey readers.

So last night I had a realization, after watching the 4th episode of that 70s show in a row, I came to the quick conclusion that I watch way too much television.

The last two months I’ve been trying to convince myself to start writing, I mean really writing, between songs, poems, a free form role playing game, and a very quietly attended blog, I realized I needed more coaxing.  I read a lot, and I feel reading is a good way to stimulate creativity, find authors voices and styles who inspire my own, and figure out how they influence me. But television for the most part is a time drain. Sure, there are pieces out there that are truly well written stories, but binge watching mindless old sitcoms just to kill time the easiest way I know how is really just draining away valuable creative hours.

So my ultimatum for myself is as follows- from now until December 12th, the premier of the Netflix original series Marco Polo, I will abstain from watching anything on television. I will give myself the exception of movies, but even then there aren’t many on my radar, so my goal is to spend all the time I would normally use to watch tv to focus efforts on writing and catching up on music that I’ve been missing out on. So help me out! Give me something you’d like to hear me write about, and help me think of new music to listen to.

I already wrote a 1,300 word piece on the train home today, (which I might share with you if you ask nicely) and I can really tell that this will force me to actually use my brain.

Until next time,

Cheers.

Know your monster!

Hey guys, or should I say, Boo!

Sorry. I really am. I’m just getting into the Halloween spirit, if you’re at a party in DC this year and see a very disoriented Bojack horseman, that’s probably me. (I’ll be disoriented because Those masks are hard to see out of!)

I’ve been dabbling in monster and fae related literature lately, Dresden, Sookie Stackhouse, James lovegroves’ Redlaw, the walking dead novels, and season 10 of supernatural of course.  But I’ve noticed a growing trend, there’s a lot of different kinds of creatures that happen to share the same name.

  Before we move on, I’d like to give warning, this is a fantasy heavy blog post, so if you don’t like fantasy, click away now or be subjected to a barrage of magical beings.

My investigstion began about a week ago, when a friend and I were arguing the necessary qualities of an elf. This began because I told her that I didn’t like elves in Skyrim, due to their strange looks. My friend told me that was absurd, elves didn’t have to be beautiful, and pointed out Santa’s elves,  the shoemaker elves, and the keebler elves. My reasoning was that those are hardly the standard elves, and would be considered more gnomeish by today’s fantasy standards.

My first real encounter with divergent types of fantasy characters were the vampires in magic the gathering.  In the Zendikar block, vampires are a dark, tribal race of blood suckers. Two years later in Innistrad, they were re introduced as a aristocracy that held humans in terror of their power. So what’s the difference?

The difference is how you write your characters.  It’s no secret, fae, zombies, and monsters are still in the spotlight of trendy literature.  One of the big tricks to writing a well thought out story is making sure you know your characters.  If your zombies are the result of a voodoo witch doctor, don’t use the characteristics of world wide disease zombies. (See Age of Voodoo by James Lovegrove.) If your werewolves are actually sharpshifters, they don’t need to worry about the full moon (Fool Moon by Jim Butcher explains 4 varieties of werewolves.)  if fae are a parallel race of beings, they need to be more unified than if vampires and fairies and demons are separate races (Lost Girl vs. Supernatural.)

My overall point is, make the creature you write your own. Don’t rely on others explanation of how a race operates, unless of course you’re deciding to make vampires not drink blood. That’s just crazy talk.

Until next time

-Josh

8 Rules for Creative Writing, and why Your Blog Should be Following Them

One of my all time favorite authors is Kurt Vonnegut.  I read the book Cat’s Cradle in 10th grade on the recommendation of a friend, (to be completely honest, it was a girl, and I was trying to impress her.)  The book had a profound impact on my life, and really opened me up to deeper, more complex books, before that, the majority of my reading was science fiction/fantasy or stock classics, not that there is anything wrong with either of these genres, I still have much love for both, but I was ushered into a world of books that stretched my mind in ways I didn’t know were possible.

Kurt Vonnegut passed away in 2007, a few years before I had my first encounter with his work.  I was never able to ask him how to make my writing better, but he once provided some advice in an essay called “Creative Writing 101″ which can be found in the posthumous collectionBamboo Snuffbox. The highlight of this essay was a list of rules for creative writing, which are as follows:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.

These Rules are essentially what shapes modern fiction.  No longer are stories written to meet word count quotas, instead, readers are looking for someone who can tell them a story quickly, connect with them, and entertain them.  Why should your blog be any different?

Cheers

-Josh