Grammar: The Writer's Greatest Misconception

One of the greatest struggles a new writer faces is how self-critical they are of their own work. They get a brilliant idea and passionately pound the keys of their keyboard, working in a frenzy.  Once the initial adrenaline rush of inspiration wears off, they proudly kick back and read their manuscript.

Their hearts become shattered.  They see misspelled words, wrong words used and improper grammar in every other sentence.  The writer begins to have doubts about their abilities and their self-worth.  The writing is crap.

This is a natural part of the cycle of writing.  Ernest Hemmingway once said, "The first draft of anything is crap."  He actually used another word besides "crap", but I'm trying to keep my blog G/PG whenever I can.

A writer doesn't need grammar.  We have many talented editors, educators, students and everyday folk who have amazing literary skills and know how to format a sentence properly.  They also know how to catch bad writing habits and more.

What the literary world needs are innovative ideas and imagination.  We need writers to take us into new worlds and new adventures, opening our eyes and expanding our understanding of our place in the universe.  Ideas do not require good grammar to deliver themselves.  That's what an editor is for.  To see your idea and to know how to shape your idea into a story.

The greatest tool of a writer is their voice.  An author's voice isn't changed by an editor correcting a word if the voice is strong.  Focus on your voice as a writer.  What is your style?  For instance, I like to focus on miniscule detail because I like to think of my voice as a paintbrush painting a picture.  The trick my editor taught me was how I can go into exact detail without damaging the pace of my story.  An editor is the YANG voice to your YIN!

So write.  Then write some more.  You can then start self-editing once your first draft is done and correct what you know is wrong.  Move sentences, rearrange paragraphs and do the best you can.  Get a professional editor and request them to look over your work.  Accept their wisdom and knowledge.  An editor doesn't want to kill your masterpiece.  They want to help you avoid the pitfall mistakes that many published writers have made.

The more you write, the more you self-edit and the more you work with editors, the better you will become at Grammar.  Remember, your ideas are what we need.  Write!

~Will

Writing Tip #1: Do Not Edit As You Go

Before you start setting writing goals or anything else involved with writing, the first and foremost thing to remember is "Do Not Edit As You Go."

When I'm writing in a frenzy trying to get my ideas onto the page, the thing that will break my rhythm faster than anything is if I am a thousand words in for the day and find myself thinking about the red underlined word that I misspelled in my first sentence.  If I go back and correct just that one word, I am done for the day.  I will obsess about every error I just made and that lowers my confidence.

Editing happens later.  All mistakes can be fixed in future drafts.  Don't worry about whether or not that sentence fits.  If you need to add it to a different paragraph, it would actually be better to just write the remainder of the paragraph.  And if it bothers you that much, rewrite the sentence again in the new paragraph.  You can delete the displaced sentence later.

The absolutely most time-consuming issue related to writing is editing.  And for you to get the progress you need to build a long work, you don't need anything to slow you down or discourage you.  Just write it, move on and fix it later.

~Will

Food for Thought

Creatives who dwell on criticism are searching for validation of their self-worthiness, but the ones who create for the pleasure of doing so measure their successes through the gratification of completing their projects to their own satisfaction.

1987: My First Role-Playing Experience

In the Fall of 1987, I was sent to the Lakeside Middle School auditorium during an entertainment basketball game because I didn't have the .50 cent admission fee.

I was pretty upset about not participating, not that I enjoyed basketball, but because all of my friends were at the game.  As I was sitting there, quietly to myself, a face I sort of recognized came down and he sat a few rows ahead of me.  He opened his book bag and took out a large book and started reading.

Needless to say, I was pretty bored. After all, I was an avid reader and although I didn't know this guy too well, my thought was we were in the same boat and there wasn't any rule about talking.  I got up and sat closer to him and introduced myself.  He told me his name was Dentye. We instantly connected as friends.

I asked him if he had forgotten his money too and he told me he did not. In fact, he said to me that he didn't care for sports and preferred the opportunity to read.  I inquired to what he was reading and he showed me something I had never seen before, a 1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master guide.

Growing up in the 1980's I was familiar with the Dungeons and Dragons Saturday morning cartoon, but I had no idea there were books about it.  I asked him about the story and he explained to me that it was a game, not a fantasy novel.  To me, this sounded very confusing, so I asked him if we could play the game.  He explained that it took time to prepare and also I needed to create a character. He and his brother had a game planned for that very night along with a friend of theirs who was a grade older than us.

After school, Dentye decided to introduce me to this friend of the family to see if he was cool if I joined the game.  He asked me to think about what kind of character I wanted to play and so I did.  We went to Main Street in Lake Village, Arkansas to meet his friend who was busy stocking shelves.  The friend asked me, "I'm cool with you playing, but what do you want to play?"

I had no idea how to answer, so I said, "An elf!"

The guy just looked at me and started to laugh.  He knew that Dentye had not explained much to me about the mechanics of the game. So, he clarified by asking, "Yes, I can see you are eager to play an elf, but what CLASS do you want to play?  Do you want to be a fighter, a thief, or a magic user?"

Once again, I had no real answer since my only real experience with "this game based on a book" was from a Saturday morning cartoon.  I said, "I dunno, but I certainly want to be an elf."  To this day, I have absolutely no idea why I was obsessed with being an elf.

So the guy told Dentye to bring me along and he would talk to Dentye's brother and come up with something for me.

Later, Dentye and I went to his house after I explained to my mom that I was going to be out for awhile. Luckily, he lived close by and his step-dad was a police officer, so my mom said it was ok for me to stay out later than usual since it was a Friday night.

When we arrived at Dentye's house, his mom was very kind and friendly and she offered to feed us. Dentye was rushed and wanted to head to his brother's room where his brother and friend were waiting to play.  I walked in and saw Dentye's older brother, Butch sitting behind a large cardboard screen, but that was not the oddest thing I discovered in this first introduction.

Butch was sitting there with long, blond hair and large brown eyes wearing a straw hat, a heavy metal t-shirt (I don't remember the band, sorry) and bright orange sweatpants complete with a big pair of cowboy boots.  My first thought was that this guy was completely off his rocker, but then I learned that he liked art and was a good artist.  Later, I discovered it was his intention to appear as freakish as possible just to make a memorable impression.  It was absolutely most memorable!

Dentye and I sat down and his friend handed me a character sheet.  He explained to me that Dentye was playing a duel class magic user/thief and he was playing a new class from a book they had recently acquired called a Cavalier.

Since I was wet behind the ears new to the game, Butch and his friend decided to roll up a fighter character for me, but something that would be simple.  They rolled up my character, a human barbarian.

Needless to say, I was disappointed but understood their logic. Butch explained to me that even a basic elven race character had some understanding of magic and that he preferred to not have new players dealing with the game mechanics of magic.  This was his way of easing the learning curve.

They handed me a set of dice for the game.  I was only familiar with a six-sided dice at that time, like the ones used to play board games.  The little pyramid, four-sided die looked odd, but not nearly as odd as the diamond shaped eight-sided die or the ten-sided die.  It blew my mind when they handed me the twenty-sided die. Admittedly, I was completely overwhelmed and Butch could see it.  He decided that I would just hang on to the d20 as he called it and he would roll the rest of my dice for me.

The only thing that I had to do was come up with a name, so I chose the name "Barad".  It sounded to me like something you would hear on the other Saturday morning cartoon that I enjoyed, Thundarr the Barbarian.  That was the extent of what I knew about barbarians at the time, except for the Conan comics my uncle owned that I wasn't allowed to read because they were mature.

The game went quite well.  Butch unfurled this amazing story full of adventure and intrigue.  We worked our ways through several traps and a few monster encounters.  Dentye and their friend were searching corpses and finding gold, healing potions and other treasures. When Butch told me I had taken damage, he told me to mark off my hit points.  They were getting pretty low.

Finally, our characters walked into an old laboratory.  There were empty potion vials and tubes everywhere.  I started to get an idea of how this game was played, so I told Butch I wanted to search one of the tables he described.  There was a potion bottle resting there with no stopper on it and the ooze inside was green and putrid.  He cracked a little smile at me.  He knew I needed a healing potion and I jumped to the conclusion that he was taunting me, testing me with that sarcastic smile under his silly little straw hat and unlit corncob pipe.

I needed the healing.  Dentye and his friend had been scooping up all the treasure.  It was time for me to get into this game.  I declared that I wanted to drink the potion.  Dentye and his friend protested.  I knew I had made the right decision.  They wanted the potion for themselves.  Surely, it wasn't gonna kill me.  This was my first time playing and Butch seemed like a nice guy.  Plus he gave me that curt smile trying to send me some kind of signal.  Bottoms up, my character inhaled the vial.

Butch looked at me and said, "You seem like a nice guy and a smart kid, so I'm going to show you a bit of mercy.  The taste of the liquid is vile and you feel like you want to puke it from your mouth before you swallow."

This was some ploy, these guys were fooling with me and I knew it.  I said, "Nope, I want to swallow it."  I mean, why would this guy kill off my character?  My hit points were low and I would most likely not make it through the next encounter anyways, so what could I possibly have to lose.  Dentye and his friend smacked themselves in the face with what is referred today as a facepalm.

Butch explained to me that the poison was creating damage to me at one hit point per round for the next twenty rounds. I had six hit points, which would mean that in six minutes, I would be at zero hit points and be rendered unconscious.  And just because he felt sorry for me, he would allow me to go to negative ten hit points before I could not be healed or resurrected.

Dentye and his friend scrambled.  They knew we had almost completed the dungeon.  The Cavalier dragged my character's unconscious body in front of the room of the final encounter of the adventure, where the big bad boss was waiting.  He explained to Dentye that there was no time to detect and remove traps and so he threw my limp, unconscious body through the doorway where I took enough damage to reach negative ten hit points and died permanently.

Yes, that is correct.  My very first role-playing experience lasted for just a little over two hours before my character's death because I was not only new to the game, but I was also a complete idiot.

Dentye and his friend slew the master in the chamber and looked around to see if there was anything to rescue me.  They believed Butch put something there because he gave me extra time.  In fact, Butch just wanted them to get creative and use me to complete their mission anyway.  His friend did just that when he used my character's broken body to disable the traps.

Dentye and his friend paid an homage to my character and his stupidity.  They removed a finger in case they could find a priest who could resurrect me from it.

At the end of the night, Butch walked over to one of his bookshelves and handed me a novel entitled "The Crystal Shard" by R.A. Salvatore.  He explained to me that although my character died in my first game, I shouldn't give up playing and I should do some research.  He said that once I read this book, he would consider letting me play another barbarian because Barad was dead, buried and gone.

That was my first role-playing experience and how I discovered my favorite writer who inspired my writing.

~Will

Learning From My Mistakes

So while talking with my editor the other day online, we talked about my journey with publishing Heir of the Blood King.

I wrote an article after I first published it and I complained that it was making me pull my hair out.  There is a reason it was so difficult for me.  I was doing it wrong because I not only missed steps, but I got them in the wrong order.

My editor clarified for me that the steps should be:

1. Writing
2. Developmental
3. Copy Edits
4. Proofreading
5. Format
6. Cover
7. Publish

I have a lot of excuses for doing things the way that I did, but that is just what I have, a bunch of excuses. The main reason, to be honest, was that I didn't believe in myself enough to make an investment into myself.  I cut corners and I did everything the hard way.  Here are the steps that I took in the wrong order:

1. Writing
2. Four Revisions by my wife and I with no professional input
3. Format
4. Publish
5. Proofreading
6. Cover
7. Copy Edit

As it turns out though, there were a few things that I did do correctly.  As I was writing, I didn't attempt to edit, so it made the creative process must faster.  After I finished the first draft, I did a read through to check pacing.  I wanted it to be fast and I had the result I was looking for. As we worked on drafts 2 through 4, my wife and I took turns reading out loud to catch any errors.

So, when I release book 2, I fully intend on following my editor's advice.  You can call what I do a hobby and there are many people who invest thousands of dollars into their hobby with no hope of recovering any of their investments.  I should be ashamed for not spending the money that I should have spent on my hobby because I am creating works that will still be making returns on my investment long after I am dead for my children and grandchildren.  Very few hobbies offer that kind of potential return.

I also discovered a few more things:  

1. It pays to be patient because it will cost you not only more money, but opportunities to connect to readers if you rush through the process.
2. When writing a series, be sure to have at least a couple of installments ready before you begin the release process. No one wants a one book series and you never know what can happen to you before you have a chance to write it.
3. Reviews are for readers, not authors.
4. When you get a bad review, never, EVER start a discussion about it no matter the justification.  Let it be.  Find something constructive and work on your craft.
5. Always trust your editor. They know what they are doing.
6. Connect with your readers one on one.  Yes, it is a slow process, but in the end, you are building loyal relationships and nothing will boost your opportunities like word of mouth conversations about your work.

Suggested Reading: 13 Reasons You Should Write A Short Story This Month

Here is a great article by Anne R. Allen about why you should write a short story:

http://annerallen.blogspot.com/2015/05/13-reasons-why-you-should-write-short.html

Life: Fight The Good Fight

As a kid, I always enjoyed board games.  I played Monopoly for hours, Uno, Risk, Sorry and yes, even Life.

Being a child, I thought the concept of Life was simple. I didn't think about a real job, getting married, kids and retirement. 

But the older I get, I realize how much a game living your life can be. I'm not talking about what events happen to you, but how your perceptions about those events fundamentally shape you.

For example, you can have a challenge enter your life and you can go with the "Woe is me" attitude or the "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" mentality.  Your choice of how you accept what comes your way, much like which paths you choose when rolling the dice on the board game, guide you to where you want to end up.

So let the backstabbers in your life do their thing.  They are petty and they don't control how you will take that experience and grow.  Your critics will do their best to create calamity and ruin.  The reason that they do this is because like the bad choices they made, their characters are flawed because they choose to be the victims instead of growing from their experiences.

I view challenges and criticism in a different way.  I take what I can and find something constructive to do with it.  Sometimes it fuels the fire to prove them wrong, other times, it helps me find critical flaws in myself and the things I do and I try to change those things that I don't like about myself. 

So don't be hurt, don't cry.  Yes, tears are important for healing and releasing the pain, but once you have processed what has happened, use the experience to grow, especially if the attacks are intended to change who you are.

You can fight the good fight and win the game of Life no matter what your dice roll result may be.

Aspiring Authors and Parenthood

So my almost 13 year old daughter sent my wife and I an email giving me permissions to a document she created on her Google Drive wanting comments and editing.  As I opened the document, I noticed right away that she wanted to write a story, something more than just free writing because she tried to visually format it using spaces and returns.

As I read her manuscript, I could clearly see her vision for the story she wanted to tell. My OCD kicked in, however, and I rushed through, adjusting her margins, etc. cleaning up the formatting problems that I saw.

Luci was very grateful for the assistance, but I could tell she was upset. I was detracted from the idea she had by its presentation.  As a writer, it is important to put ideas first, for that is the rare commodity of creativity.

My lesson here is this:  Next time, I will sit down with my daughter and go through the document with her exploring the concept.  Once that is done to both of our satisfactions, I will show her how to properly format her document.

Don't ever let the structure of a work detract you from the creative process. If the only way that you can get out the words in your head is with a crayon on your door step, you need to do that. Be sure to take lots of pictures though so you can dictate your work into a word processor after you are finished.