On Writing – Pt 2

I have finished reading Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But it was different to what I expected.

The book is part autobiographical and part instructional, with a number of anecdotes and chapters covering some key moments in King’s life that helped form his writing and the difficulties and set backs (and successes) he had in his early writing career.

Some of the best bits i found where King’s descriptions on the anxieties he felt as a young writer trying to get his work published and start on the road to where he is now. The way he coped with rejection, using it to enforce his writing rather than hamper it, and his work ethic on how to become a writer all struck cords with me and i’m sure many other readers as well.

Overall the book is a great read, the insight into King’s early life and the latter half of the book that gave some useful tips on tightenening up your writing, making it more succint and have a greater impact was very useful too. Although it’s a bit scary when reading Kings insistance that you writers generally fall into 3 main categories bad, good and great; and ascending out of either of the bottom two is nearly impossible. Still not sure whether i wholly agree with that, but can’t think of a counter argument against it. 

You don’t begrudge him his success or feel sorry for any of the harships he felt either (maybe a little when hit by a truck!), as they are all used to show how he was shaped as a writer and bacame what he was today (or was when he wrote it over a decade ago). And by the end of the book you feel like you’ve learnt something (i did anyway) and you could do worse than only coming away with King’s mantra that to become a good writer you need to read a lot and write a lot. Although i’m yet to hit his 2000 words a day target it has inspired me to concentrate my efforts more and show that despite other things in life writing can still take place and, if you’re lucky and work hard, something you’re successful at.

 

On Writing

I’ve started reading Stephen King’s book ‘On Writing’, I have seen many recommendations in different areas of the writing community for this book.; some have suggested it is a must read for any writer. So, here is to improving my writing and trying to learn something new!

On Writing – Comes highly recommended in the writing community

 

I’ll probably do a write-up on the book once finished. But its already proving a great insight into the early formation of one of the best known authors of current literature; the work involved in writing and the processes undertaken. Looking forward to finishing it!

 

A nice feeling

It’s always a nice feeling to submit a peice of work. Just submitted a short story for consideration; at this stage i don’t care whether it’s accepted or not, just that I’ve finished it and set it free!

The bad part though is the wait, around 30 days is the recommended turnaround for a response….the question is should I look at the story again in the meantime….then i’ll start wanting to tweak it and add to it!

 

Writing Horror – Short story

Going to include an extract of a Short story  / work in progress, something to mull over. Let me know what you think!

*******

Davey watched as the bulbous spider fell to the ground with a soft thump. Its long clawing legs pulled at the earth as it crawled slowly towards the motionless body of Simeon lying on its back. The creature’s swollen abdomen was pulsating grotesquely as its fangs worked in a biting motion, eager to get at the fleshy being it was approaching.

As it neared the body on the floor, its size could be truly appreciated; its raking, twitching legs were as long as the mans forearm while its bloated body appeared only a little smaller than his head. In truth the creature was more a cross between a spider and Tick, some monstrosity that shared traits with both species. It spun webs and caught its prey, would eat dead or rotting meat, but it also latched onto creatures and sucked the very blood from them while they lived.

The first two legs of the spider groped at Simeon’s face, flicking at his skin and feeling for purchase. It tentatively prodded at the body looking for signs of life before it finally decided to move. The front legs slid across the pallid skin before, at full stretch, the small hooks on the end gripped into the flesh. The other legs followed, meticulously reaching across the neck and face of Simeon and hoisting its grotesquely fat body onto his.

 

Size is everything

I have often searched bits and bobs about the length of writing and what constitutes what in the writing world. It’s not often a hard and fast rule that applies (we are talking about writing here!) but i like to have an idea of what i’m doing and understand what the structure of my writing should be.

As a result i’ve done a little research (not too much because i’m quite lazy) and put together a list of some terms what they entail in relation to writing. To start here is a list of the common forms of prose that you can find about the place – by place I mean in books, magazines and the internet…pretty much anywhere you can have text (tattoos?).

Micro Fiction – 0-100 words

Micro fiction is the Haiku of prose. The challange of writing with such limited word count is quite considerable as the end result should still be recognisable as a story. This type of fiction is often popular with writers as a good excercise for honing skills and publishers as well beause it is short and cheap!

Flash Fiction – 100 – 500 or 100-1,000 words

The older sister of the Micro fiction, Flash fiction give you just that bit more to play with, whilst also providing the challenge of writing a story to a very short length and trying to constrain your writing talents into less than 1000 words! Flash fiction seems to vary in length depending on where you look, hence the different lengths above. Flash fiction again is increasingly popular on websites and blogs, and magazine publications as it is short and concise and engages readers who don’t tend to hang around for long.

Short story – 1,000-7,500 words

The big brother of the two above; the short story is a well know and well versed example of prose nowadays. The word length is generous and it is surprising the amount you can fit into a short story, especially if you have spent some time writing in the two shorter forms and tightened your writing skills. Short stories are one of the most accessible of the writing forms, these are often bought by magazines and websites and is a common form for writing competitions. A word of note that writing competitions and websites tend to edge towards a word length of 1,000-35,00 words rather than the top end of the 7,500 word limit.

Novellette / Novella – 7,500-50,000

This is traditionally the least sought after of the different lengths of writing. The reason mainly revolves around the fact it hovers in a kind of no-mans land between the well known short forms of writing and the most recognisable Novel form. The Length is also difficult to publish effectively as it’s normally too long for use in a magazine or website but not long enough for the traditional paper publication. Saying that however, electronic texts and e-mags and publishers do pick these up as it becomes easier to publicise and share such works with the masses.

Novel – 50,000 – 120,000

The most recognisable and palpable of the fiction writing forms. The Novel is a much larger length of writing and is traditionally produced in published, paper form. Although nowadays the electronic form of book for e-readers can bypass this. 50,000 words would be fairly short for a novel but no unheard of, whereas 120,000 words is edging on the large size for most books (around 500-600 pages), books this size are normally reserved for the already published and recognisable authors.

A quick search also reveals the page numbers for a paperback. Words per page (wpp) equate to roughly 250-300 for a paperback, going off this assumption (we will use 300 wpp) and using the wordcount above for the Novel your finished peice could range from around 170 pages up towards 400 pages. Though you do have to ask yourself, when is the last time you bought a novel that only had 170 pages?

 

Imagine – Ian Rankin

The BBC put together a series of programmes entitled Imagine… which looks at the arts and follows prominent figures within key areas, discussing the way they work, the industry they work in and the processes and lifestyle they follow. One of these programmes focussed on Ian Rankin, the famous author and crime-fiction novelist, whose most famous creation is the character Rebus and the novels that contain him.

It was a great insight into the workings of a prominent Author, the struggles he faced both from publishers, editors and agents, to the self-imposed fears that manifested themselves in the course of writing a novel. The programme follows Ian Rankin on his journey to writing his most recent novel Standing in Another Man’s Grave and is made up of a selection of interview questions and answers from Alan Yentob with Ian and also a large selection of musings and thoughts processes detailing the way Ian worked, all captured by camera crew or by video Diary. One of the most interesting aspects of the programme is how it shows the details and level of work undertaken by a prominent Crime author. The process he follows and, as many writers can attest to and feel relieved to hear, the fears and worries he faces throughout the process, right up until the final draft is sent off. You certainly wouldn’t need to be a fan of his work or that of crime fiction to appreciate the aim of the programme, but if you are im sure it would only add to the enjoyment of watching it.

For anyone who enjoys writing either as a hobby or profession I would recommend watching it if you can. Even if it’s just to allay your fears and show you that even the best of writers hit stumbling blocks along the way. British audiences can watch the programme on the BBC iplayer here: Ian Rankin and the Case of the Disappearing Detective until the 25th December, unfortunately if you are abroad im not sure if / how you can access it, but maybe you can find a bootleg copy somewhere?

So a programme to recommend for writers of all kinds, something to watch out for. I’ll have to keep an eye out for more similar things, and if you know of any feel free to pass on the info!

 

Writing

The small drippings of consciousness that flow and spill from the mind, through unseen connections traversing the body and out of the fingers, coming to pool on the page. It is a trickle and sometimes torrent that seeks the outlet to spill forth and flow freely. I don’t write because I want to, I write because I need to.

 

NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month

So just a quick post. NaNoWriMo starts in a few weeks time (November 1st). For those uninitiated the following from their website sums it up nicely:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel by 11:59:59 PM on November 30.

Well, there we go, nice and easy. It is basically and instigation for writing, quality is second to quantity for the month in that you are simply meant to write your Novel, no editing or sentence structuring etc during November, just writing.

I’ve had a couple of attempts at this and failed miserably both times. However, i did enjoy the challenge and it gave me some good foundations and ideas moving on from it. For this reason, if you are up to the challenge i would recommend giving it a go. There are lots of interesting things associated with NaNoWriMo, on their website there are forums and help to get you started as well as through those long nights of writing. And there are also ways to hook up with people near you who are also participating, organise write-ins or discuss ideas. It also has a website word tracker and graphs etc for those that way inclined, be warned though these can be a motivator or stress inducer depending on how you are doing throughout the month.

Worth a look if you like writing and testing deadlines. And if you crash and burn, well there is always next year.

PS I will not be doing it this year as I value my sanity.

 

Re Blog – The reality of Writing

Hey, I was asked to write a guest blog post for the Penumbra ezine blogspot, I did and is now up and posted.  Why not check it out, it’s a nice little read on short speculative fiction and a reason for its existence: http://penumbraezine.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-reality-of-writing.html

 

To infinity and beyond

So the image below was drawn to my attention on the BBC website today. In the words of the article’s author ‘Called the eXtreme Deep Field, the picture captures a mass of galaxies stretching back almost to the time when the first stars began to shine.’

From a scientific point of view it is highly interesting. From a writers point of view it nearly made my brain implode. To look at a tiny area of space, zoom in and see over 5000 Galaxies flitting about like a cacophony of exotic birds is amazing. The mind numbing scope, a realisation of existence on this planet as the merest pin-prick on known reality.

Faced with such limitless thoughts how can you fail to find inspiration to write? To borrow a famous line from a favorite programme of mine, how can you fail ‘ to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before’ *

Space

*on Paper that is. Unless you have a starship, in which case try to avoid any race that has giant ears or that pootle around in cubes of assimilation and death.