J.R. Murdock

Now that winter is nearly upon us, and for many snow is one the ground and piling up, I can’t help but think back to when I was a kid growing up in Minnesota. Talk about cold. The winters could be devastating.

One thing I remember was living on well water. If the pump got too cold it would freeze up. So we kept a heater in the well house to make sure that didn’t happen. Each day we’d go out and check on it to make sure that the heater was still running and there wasn’t too much snow on our around the well house.

During the summer we also had to keep on eye on the pump, but for different reasons. Sure if your pump froze up it took a long time to unfreeze it to get it running again, but during the summer we would have a different problem. The pump would lose its prime.

What does that mean? It means there wasn’t any water in the pump. Somehow air had gotten into the lines and the water drained out and no more water would flow. The prime is what kept the water flowing and flowing in the correct direction. If there wasn’t any water in the pump, we’d have to go over to the neighbor’s house to fetch a bucket.

Priming a pump isn’t an easy task. It involves starting and stopping the pump at certain intervals, pouring in water at the correct time, and bleeding any air from the system. Air is your enemy when it comes to a pump and a leak will cause the water to drain out. Obviously doing this in the dead of winter in the Middle of Minnesota was the worst, but it had to be done from time to time. It was all part of owning a pump.

Think of your brain as a well of words. Those words are just crying to come out. Sometimes the words just flow freely and everything is running smoothly. Other times it might back up and you struggle to get the words on the page. Still other times you feel spent and dried up.

Prime your pump. There are a lot of words out there. If you’re at a stuck point or just can’t get anything going, try something a little different. Here are some things I’ve done to get restarted.

Re-write a paragraph. Pick anything you’ve written before or pick something from your favorite author. Just retype that exact same paragraph word for word. Don’t try to change anything, but as you’re typing, think about what you can do differently. Once you’ve retyped that paragraph, type it again with the changes you had in mind and keep thinking as you type it out, what you’d make different again. Repeat this process until you feel ready to get back onto your WIP.

Free Write. Just type whatever comes to your mind. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. Just get the words out as quickly as you can. Don’t worry about where your mind takes you, just let it roam and type out everything you can. Keep going until you fill a page and you’re ready to type more. Stop before you run into a wall, but once you’re moving along smoothly, hop back into your WIP and start typing.

Describe the next scene. This may sound weird, but take a moment or two and just describe what you think will be happening in the next scene you’re looking to write. If you’re doing a longer work or a short, it doesn’t matter. Type up a paragraph where the scene is going to go. I’ve done this before and there have been times where I’ll have that ‘Ah-ha!’ moment and I’m off and running even before I finish that paragraph. Some scenes can be dull, you need to find what about that scene excites you and once you’ve identified that part, you’re ready to write.

Do a blog post. Gee, guess which method I’m using right now? I’m looking at my WIP and I’m thinking over the scene, but not letting the words come out. I’m just sitting and staring. That’s when I thought about growing up in Minnesota and the trouble we used to have with our pump from time to time. It seemed as though it would make a great Unorthodox Writing Tips post, so I wrote it up.

Sure there are other methods you can try. It may be just finding the method that’s right for you. It should be something that takes a large amount of time. This blog post, for example, took me twenty minutes to write. Once I got into the flow of it, the words just started coming. I plan on taking that momentum and applying it to my WIP before I lose it and need to prime the pump again. I’d better get at it.

Until next time!

WOO WOO!

Except for about five years of my life, I’ve been a little over weight. Most jobs I’ve had weren’t at all physical and I have a love of food that goes above and beyond just eating a meal. I have a hearty appetite and I eat as much as I can as often as I can. I also enjoy a great beer every now and again. Thankfully I’ve been blessed with a good metabolism that prevents me from being far bigger.

So I’m not going to sit here and tell you how to eat to lose weight or anything like that. I’m not going to try and get you to change your lifestyle. What I will tell you is that what you eat before you write or during your writing session is very important.

Digestion takes a lot of work. By work I mean it takes blood and oxygen to digest food. That’s blood and oxygen that your brain needs to function and be creative. Eating a big meal high in calories will make you feel like you just finished a marathon. Think about the last time you had a big old steak dinner with potatoes, bread, vegetables (well, you probably didn’t eat those), a couple of drinks and thought to yourself, “I think what I need now is to sit down and write!”

I’m guessing your first thought was “I need a nap!” I know after I eat a big lunch or dinner, I’m moving slowly and the last thing in my mind is hitting the computer to knock out a few words. I’m lucky if I can get my brain to focus on the television for more than fifteen minutes.

So like I said, I like to eat. So what do I do when I plan on sitting down and writing? Do I starve myself? Please. You make me laugh. My body is an engine that needs fuel to keep going and starving your body is just as bad as filling up too much before you sit down to write. You need to keep that motor running.

When I’m going to write, I take a little time to plan out what I’m going to eat. Nothing complicated. But I’ll usually have a bowl of cereal for breakfast. This isn’t too much and gets my day started out. If I eat eggs and meat, I find myself already weighed down and I’ve lost energy unless I keep the portions small. Cereal helps me get a good start on the day.

A couple hours later, before I get hungry, I’ll grab a piece of fruit; an apple or a banana. Something quick and easy to eat. By this time my body is ready to go. I’m not hungry. I’ve got something in my belly. I’m comfortable and I’m thinking clearly.

For lunch, think salad. When I say salad I don’t mean something loaded with chicken or steak. I mean veggies. Perhaps a small piece of salmon. Again think small portions. Veggies, fruit, cereal: these are all things that your body will take care of quickly and with little effort. It’s keeping the fire going. It’ll help keep oxygen and blood flowing to your brain instead of your stomach. When I’m writing this keeps those creative juices flowing.

Speaking of juice. This is actually something I avoid. Unless you’re drinking 100% juice (or close to that) you’re only loading up your body with sugar. This is just as bad as eating candy bars. Sugar will also slow down your body and cause you to drag and put your brain out of focus. When I write, it’s unsweetened tea (iced) or water. No soda, no alcohol, no sugars.

Now I’m not saying you need to cut these from your diet completely. I will treat myself from time to time, but when I really want to sit down and knock out words, I need a clear head. One of the best ways I’ve found to do that is by monitoring what I eat. Keeping track isn’t as hard as it may sound and it may take some work for you to figure out what is the write diet for you, but in the end you’ll find the words will flow smoother if you get in the habit and keep that tank at the right level.

With that said, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I don’t expect to get much writing done over those days as they’ll be filled with as much food as I can eat over the course of two or three days. But, oh my, it’ll be great. Once the holiday is over, though, I’ll be back to watching my intake during my writing periods. Keep the intake light and the energy high.

Until next week!

WOO WOO!

So I’m sitting here and staring at my screen. My eyes go in and out of focus. I’m having a real tough time figuring out what to write next. It doesn’t matter if I’m updating an existing work or if I’m staring at a blank screen, I just can not get the words to start flowing.

Has this ever happened to you? Really? You mean I’m not alone? Whew. I was worried there for a moment.

The question becomes this, what do you do when you’re having those points where words just do not want to come out of your head? Do you just sit there and wait? Do you fire up a first-person shooter? Do you access twitter and pretend like that’s writing? Log onto facebook?

You know what I do? I change my point of view.

I want you to stand up (if you can do that right now) and look around at your surroundings. What’s around you right now? Are you at a desk with a wall in front of you? Are you at the local Starbucks drinking a coffee and listening to music? Are you sitting at the kitchen table with the kids running by? Are you on a crowded bus trying to type out a few words during your commute? Take a moment and type out a description of where you’re currently sitting.

Next I want you to get up and walk outside. If you’re already outside, change the place you’re currently at. Now I want you to take a moment and just take a deep breath. Look around outside and try, in your mind, to describe what you see. What you hear. What you smell. How it makes you feel. Is it cold outside? Does the sun warm your face? Is there traffic going by? Are there people or animals around? Do you overhear a conversation? Is the wind blowing through the trees?

Now go back to where you were and describe what just happened. Don’t think about what just happened but instead describe in as much detail as you can what you experienced. Did a black-and-white dog run by? Perhaps a lady with an oversized, purple purse and her hair up in curlers walked past. How many cars did you see? Get in everything you can. Describe the terrible sound the car made as it rattled and sputtered by. Try and catch as much detail as you can about that couple of minutes of experience.

Once you’re written this down, take the time to start on your work that just sitting there waiting for you. Use that experience to spice up a scene you’re working on. Include that dog or that lady or that car that went by or the smells wafting by on the breeze. Try to take something from what you just experienced and include that in your work to make the scene a little richer, a little more than it was just a moment before.

If you’re ever stuck again, just give it a try. Poke your head outside, take a deep breath and just watch and listen for a minute or two. If you do type up either what you currently see around your writing area or what you see outside, post it as a comment. I’d love to hear about it.

Until Next week.

WOO WOO!

I remember when I first started writing. It was the late 80s. I was going to finally write my first novel. I wrote three or four chapters by hand as I didn’t have a computer or typewriter and paper was cheap. After the first four chapters I re-read what I’d written and thought it was terrible. I threw it away.

I tried again and this time got up to six chapters before I threw it all away, again.

This became a cycle for me. I wanted to write, but I couldn’t keep going with what I had written. What I had put down was just awful and I knew no one would ever want to read it. I almost talked myself out of writing all together. But I really wanted to write.

I tried again. This time I made it to what I felt was about the half way mark of the book and decided that this was just far too much work for something so awful. And I threw out all that work, again.

Fast forward a few years. I still had those characters running around inside my head. I had found an artist and he had agreed that it would make a cool comic. I started writing it as a comic book. It was fun and fast to write. I finished the first hand written draft after a month of writing. Sadly, for me, the artist got an apprenticeship with Jim Lee and the comic idea was dead.

This, of course, took the wind out of my sail, but I had a completed storyline. I decided to keep writing it as a comic and look for another artist. I didn’t just write the second story in comic format, I wrote the third as well.

Fast forward a few years. I had trunked my work and wasn’t about to let anyone, except my girlfriend (now my wife), see those words. It was rough, had terrible grammar, but I still liked the story and the characters. I decided to start typing out the handwritten pages and I would clean it up as I went. All in all it came out to roughly 40,000 words. Far too short to be a novel, but it lacked a lot of description and inner monologue.

I went back and added description, but didn’t fully understand internal monologue. After far too long (nearly ten years) editing the first book it weighed in at ~65,000 words. I decided that it was as done as it was going to get and moved on to book two.

This time I took the original pages as an outline for the story and instead began writing from scratch. It was incredible. All I had struggled to learn in the first book flowed with the second book. It took me a week (six days to be exact) to write ~60,000 words. A feat I have never been able to duplicate.

I spent the next month working on book three of that series and it came in at ~70,000 words. Book four in that series also took about a month.

I finally had some confidence in what I was doing, just not enough that I felt like I could share the work with just anyone. I had a very small, select group of people that all gave me advice. For the most part they liked the story, but it was missing something and none of them could really explain what it was missing.

I stopped writing for three years because I had suddenly lost my confidence. I felt like I had just wasted all so many years and my work just wasn’t good enough.

After that hiatus, I spent a year writing short stories. I still wanted to write, but I didn’t want to move on to a bigger work. I wrote one hundred short stories and started submitting like a mad man. I racked up a couple hundred rejections, but I also got a few sales. I sold ten short stories that year. I had to keep going back to those stories to see what I had done that was different than the ones that didn’t sell.

I got back to work on novels after that. I’d do a rough outline to give me a general direction. Some simple research, and BAM! I’d be off and running.

Life happens. Troubles will come into your life. People will die. There are many things that can take the wind out of your sails. All of these affected me and my writing. But through it all I’ve written ten novels. I feel I’ve gotten better at telling a story. I have more fun when I sit down and write. I don’t have as much trouble getting to ‘the end’ as I used to.

What does all this have to do with bootstraps?

Pick yourself up. Realize that not everyone will like what you write. You may not be writing the next best selling novel, but you’re writing. A majority of the people in the world that want to write will never start. You’re already way ahead of the curve by putting words on a page. Even if you’re having a tough time with it, just get the words out. Don’t let life prevent you from getting to ‘the end’.

It’s been said that you can’t polish a turd, but you can shape it into something that looks better than a turd and once you learn how to do that, you can learn how to make something that is worth polishing. If you’ve got nothing then you’ll end with nothing.

Trust yourself. Surround yourself with people whose opinions you trust. Don’t take criticism as an attack on you as a person, but take it to heart and see what you can do to improve what you are doing.

Yes, it took me fifteen years before I saw my first sale, but that’s because I second guessed myself every step of the way and didn’t allow anyone to see my work for a very long time. I didn’t take any advice and instead tried to plow forward on my own. I took the hard way. Many people have taken the hard way to publication. You will be better served if you look and see what others have done before you and follow one of their paths.

If you are excited about your work, let your excitement be infectious. If you’re nervous about your work, try not to let others know how you feel. You need to believe in yourself before others will want to believe in you. So pick yourself up. Get yourself out there. Don’t be afraid of success that can be yours. Take the criticism of your work as ways to improve your craft, not as an attack against you personally. For the most part, people want to help you and help you succeed.

Get out there!

Until Next week.

WOO WOO!