Writer Me

In admiration of the brilliant Zillow commercial called “Susans,” here’s my take:

Photography Assistance by Sean Strange

Okay, listen up. Need ideas for the next story to write. Thoughts? Writer’s Block Me?

“I got nothin.”

Shouldn’t ever start with you. Daydreaming Me?

“Huh? Did you say something?”

Sheesh. Perfectionist Me?

“Working on the last story. It’s still not quite right.”

Never will be. Impatient Me?

“Just scribble something and submit it already.”

Right. Procrastinating Me?

“Can do. I’ll get back to you in…oh…a week from—”

Never mind. Distracted Me?

“Wow! Have you guys seen this video?”

Great. In-the-Zone Me?

“Can’t talk now.”

Sorry. How about…Editing Me?

“Who wrote this dreck? First-draft Me?”

First-draft Me: “Hey, none of you is perfect, but I’m first.”

Settle down, you two. Overcritical Me?

“Forget the whole idea. It’s stupid.”

Why even invite you? Creative Me?

“Loaded with fresh story ideas. Want ‘em alphabetically or by topic?”

Wonderful, but I need someone to do the writing… Prolific Me?

“I can work with Creative Me and knock out a story tonight. How’s that?”

Perfect. That’s why you two are my favorite me’s.

Sensitive Me (tearing up): “But…but I thought …”

Don’t cry. I’ll need you for character development. Let’s get on this. All together:

“Me! Me! Me! Me! Me—“

Poseidon’s Scribe (Me)

Oh, the Things You’ll Write!

It’s hard to think of a hobby, pastime, or activity more versatile, more location-independent, than writing. You can write almost anywhere. I’ve come up with a poem about that. Sincere apologies, Dr. Seuss:

You can write stuff on a train. You can write stuff on a plane.

You can write stuff in your house. Write beside your dozing spouse.

Write by soft electric light. Write quite late into the night.

You can write until the dawn. You can write out on the lawn.

You can write while in a park. You can write on old tree bark.

You can write both here and there. You can write most anywhere.

You can write while at a desk, from sublime to the grotesque.

Write first hither and then yon, and while sitting on the john

Write in your own living room, in a meeting while on Zoom.

Write while sitting in a chair wearing only underwear.

Write while riding in a car. Write when you get to the bar.

You can write both there and here. Write between big gulps of beer.

You can write while still in school, then while tanning at the pool.

You can write within your dorm. Write through a torrential storm.

You can write your prose so clear, hanging from a chandelier.

Have you written ‘till you cried, halfway up a mountainside?

You can write on any trip, even on a fine cruise ship.

You can write beneath the moon. Write aloft in a balloon.

You could write, or so I’ve heard, high up in a whirlybird.

You can by world unseen, while aboard a submarine.

You can write on your commute. Or hanging from a parachute.

You can write your very best while atop Mount Everest.

Write in far-off Kathmandu, or even while in Timbuktu.

You can write in every place. Even while in outer space.

Write while in a time machine. (Done before you start, I mean.)

You can write in any spot. That’s convenient, is it not?

You can write, (this ain’t no gibe), better than—

Poseidon’s Scribe

The Writer’s Xanatos Gambit

If you write a book or short story and get it published, you win the game. In fact, no matter what happens, you can’t lose.

David Xanatos, from Disney’s “Gargoyles”

This situation is called the ‘Xanatos Gambit,’ named for David Xanatos, a fictional character (voiced by actor Jonathan Frakes) in the 1990’s Disney cartoon series, “Gargoyles.” It’s a logical construct where the plan’s creator benefits from every conceivable outcome, even from apparent failures. If I’m not mistaken, the idea of calling it the ‘Xanatos Gambit’ came, not from the show, but from the TV Tropes website.

Getting back to our hypothetical, you’ve written a book and it’s been published. Though it’s available for sale, it may not achieve commercial success, however you define that. Still, it’s almost a guarantee that at least one potential reader will come across the book’s cover, with its title and your name.

I’ll skip over the case where the reader buys, reads, and enjoys your book. That’s an obvious win for you.

However, the potential reader may ignore your book, attention flitting past to the next item of interest in the bookstore or the internet. Still, your name registers in the reader’s mind. Should that reader come across your name again, a memory is triggered, an association made. This might prod curiosity, and perhaps, eventually, the reader will buy your book or mention your name to another reader who will buy it. That’s a win for you.

Even if that reader ignores your book and never thinks of it again, your book is out there, available for sale. Other readers will see it. The odds are certain that at least one will buy your book, or another you’ve written. That’s a win.

If a reader buys your book, the reader may never read it. Still, it’s a sale and you earned some money. You win.

The reader may hate your book. Might write a damning review. Might tell friends and relatives never to buy anything written by you. Might popularize a “Hate [insert your name] Day,” a holiday dedicated to burning you in effigy or sticking pins in a voodoo doll replica of you. Even then, your book and your name achieve fame that rises above the common person. A win for sure.

There’s a tiny chance no one buys your book, ever. Still, though decades, centuries, and millennia will pass and you will die, you’ve left behind more than ashes in an urn or a stone in a cemetery. You’ve left behind something no storm can blow away, no flood can drown, no earthquake can swallow. You’re a published writer. Win.

Write that book, get it published, and win. Thanks to the Xanatos Gambit, you can’t lose, and neither can—

Poseidon’s Scribe

6 (or 7?) Secrets to Being a Prolific Writer

Would you like to write as many books (over 500) as Dr. Isaac Asimov? Let’s find out how he did it.

Writer Charles Chu studied Asimov’s autobiographies and distilled six habits Asimov developed and used to write so many enjoyable books. Below is my summary of that list, put in my own words. I’ve added a seventh bonus habit as well.

  1. Read to Learn. Don’t stop educating yourself, even though you’ve finished formal school. Take Mark Twain seriously, and “never let school interfere with your education.” Read a lot, and on many different topics. You never know what will spark your muse.
  2. Bypass Writer’s Block. Sometimes you might get stuck, either because you don’t know what to write next, or because you’ve been over and over your story so many times you can’t stand it anymore. When that happened to Asimov, he shifted to a different writing project. When you return to the project that gave you writers block, you’ll approach it with a fresh perspective, and you may find you’re now ready to finish it.
  3. Ignore the Mental Antibodies. Within you dwell antibodies whose job is to identify, attack, and eliminate bacteria and viruses. You have mental antibodies, too, and they ‘protect’ you from ideas that are different or scary, notions that might get criticized by readers. This causes insecurities and fears. These antibodies can turn you into a perfectionist, forever editing and never submitting, or cause you to abandon a writing project altogether. Asimov never became a perfectionist. Aware of the danger of mental antibodies, he just forged ahead and wrote.
  4. Lower Your Bar. As mentioned, Asimov wasn’t a perfectionist. He loved to quote Robert Heinlein’s phrase, “They don’t want it good. They want it Wednesday.” Asimov developed confidence, then pride, in his writing. (Perhaps a bit beyond pride.) His self-assurance enabled him to rise above doubts, to avoid over-editing. Obviously, this is a learned skill. Don’t put trashy first drafts into the marketplace and expect them to sell.
  5. Don’t Take Breaks. Maybe your first story failed to sell, and you think it will help your writing if you take some time off. Or maybe your story did very well, and you feel you deserve to rest on your laurels awhile. Asimov never did that. He kept working, always concentrating on the Work in Progress (WIP) rather than the work most recently published.
  6. Stuck for an Idea? Think Harder. New writers and non-writers often ask authors where they get their ideas. Asimov got asked too, and his answer was, “by thinking and thinking and thinking till I’m ready to kill myself…Did you ever think it was easy to get a good idea?” Note the adjective ‘good.’ Like most people, he probably got many ideas to write about, but found a low percentage worthy of his time. More thought generally solved that problem for him.

Charles Chu ended his list at six, but hinted at a seventh Asimov habit for being a prolific writer, so I’ll state it outright:

  1. Write Every Day. Maybe you can’t equal Asimov’s work schedule—eight hours a day, seven days a week. But if you adopt the previous six habits, you’ll achieve a reproducible process where more time writing results in more publishable output.

Perhaps you won’t write 500 books, but there are degrees of prolificness, so you could end up further to the right on that spectrum than you expected. Thanks to the wisdom of Isaac Asimov, that’s the aim of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

Writing and the 1st Amendment

Today is Constitution Day in the U.S., the 234th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. Since that document includes a 1st Amendment, and since that amendment is important to writers, I thought I’d mark this anniversary.

The text is straightforward: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…” Sounds simple, but over the centuries, lawyers and scholars have debated every word of that amendment, including ‘the.’

In theory, the 1st Amendment frees fiction writers to write about anything they want. That’s a good thing. Writers need not fear the government jailing or fining them for what they write.

In practice, the Supreme Court has imposed limits applicable to fiction writers:

  1. You may engage in political writing, unless it poses a “clear and present danger” of bringing about an evil that the Congress has a right to prevent. Over the years, the prohibitions have narrowed in favor of more freedom for the writer.
  2. If you’re a student in school, you’re subject to some limitations on what you can write about in a school-sponsored publication.
  3. You’re limited in the types of obscenity and pornography you can write about, but again, the prohibitions have narrowed in favor of the writer.
  4. You can’t defame, slander, or libel someone. The definitions of those have narrowed as well.
  5. You may not copy someone else’s writing and claim it as your own.

Some of the founders, including James Madison, at first objected to the inclusion of the 1st Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights, arguing that the Constitution already implied and contained these individual rights, that they required no separate enumeration.

In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing they ratified the Bill of Rights. Governments, by their very nature, grow and seek to restrict the freedom of individuals. Without a written and obvious restriction on governmental growth, the Supreme Court might have had a harder time digging ‘freedom of speech’ out of the basic Constitution’s text. 

For now, you’re free to write just about anything, and that’s something to celebrate. Happy Anniversary, 1st Amendment! Though you’re old, a bit tattered, and under constant assault, you’re looking pretty good to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 17, 2021Permalink

Negentropy and Writing

Do you recall one of your physics teachers mentioning the concept of entropy? Today I’d like to discuss its opposite, negentropy, and how that applies to writing.

Entropy depresses me. I dislike the idea that energy changes into less and less useful forms, that order becomes chaos, and that the universe eventually runs down and stops.

Negentropy seems more fun. While we all wait for the universe to wind down, we can take tiny chunks of it and turn chaos into order within those chunks.

I ran across this article by Dr. Alison Carr-Chellman where she explores the concept of negentropy as it applies to everyday things like cleaning your room or making your workplace run smoother. I wondered if her concepts could apply to writing fiction.

Writing, itself, epitomizes negentropy. The inputs—life experiences, a brain, and writing implements—get converted to a single output, fiction. Chaos becomes order.

But is your fiction-producing process smooth and efficient? Are you losing energy along the way? Think about achieving maximum output (published fictional stories) for minimum input (personal time and energy).

Dr. Carr-Chellman provides five steps for improving that efficiency (she calls it ‘minimizing energy loss’). I’ll discuss each as they apply to writing fiction.

1: Find the entropy. Think of the steps involved in getting to a published story. Which of those steps (examples: researching, editing) take the most time for you? Which do you put off or rush through (ex: scene setting, choosing a title) because you hate doing them? Which steps do you agonize over (ex: submitting, marketing) because you don’t understand them well?

2: Prioritize the losses. Identify the biggest entropy problems, so you tackle them first. Not only will this provide the best gains in efficiency, but your success will embolden you to solve the others in a similar manner.

3: Come up with a plan. For the steps taking too much time, consider self-imposed time limits. For the steps you hate, give yourself small rewards for completing them. For the steps you don’t understand well, learn about them from TED talks, YouTube videos, books, or internet searches.

4: Try it out and pay attention. As you implement your improvement plans, track how they’re working. Did you put more energy and time into the plan itself than the improvement warranted?

5: Go beyond fixing and maintenance. As you plug all these energy leaks and achieve a smoother process, consider the bigger picture. Perhaps you’ve now developed a very efficient method for selling low-grade stories. That may not have been your desire. It’s not worth optimizing a process that doesn’t result in the output you want.

If you start implementing negentropy into your writing now, you stand a great chance of optimizing it before maximum entropy brings about the heat death of the universe. That event may happen as soon as ten to the hundredth power years from now. That’s a googol years. Best not to schedule anything in your personal organizer for any date after that event.

Negentropy, turning chaos into order. That’s the main job of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 12, 2021Permalink

6 Things You Need to be a Successful Writer

In this post, author Mike Swift claims there are six things a successful writer needs. If you don’t already have these things, can you buy them at the store?

Here are the six things on his list:

  • A desire to be heard;
  • Life experience;
  • A way with words;
  • Perseverance;
  • Luck; and
  • Hard work.

I don’t see much to quibble about on his list. I was tempted to add Time, but if you have a desire to be heard, you’ll find time.

For now, let’s accept his list as accurate. Right now, you’re looking back over the list and checking off the items you have, and your tally is coming up a little short of six. So is mine. Now you’re asking: how do I get the ones I don’t have?

A Desire to be Heard. Perhaps you don’t have this. Or, more accurately, you don’t think you have this. Remember, at some point in your life, you had something important to say and everybody in the room was ignoring you, intent on something else. Think back to that feeling. You do have something to say, and it’s high time the world listened up.

Life Experience. Mike Swift equates this item with ‘having something to write about.’ He wasn’t implying that you have to be old or retired to write. In my view—and, I’m guessing, in his, too—even teenagers have sufficient life experience to write about. I think everyone over the age of thirteen can check this one.

A Way with Words. This might be the biggest stumbling block for most folks who’d like to write someday. They read the classics and think, “I could never write like that.” I suggest looking at it a different way. True, you could never write like [insert favorite author name here], but that author couldn’t ever write like you either. Perhaps you’re not looking for A Way with Words, but Your Way with Words. Moreover, this item pretty much gets checked off with practice. You’ll find your voice the more you write.

Perseverance. So you’re the type who gives up at the first setback. Can you learn perseverance? Yes. First, remember day follows night; that lowdown feeling of failure never lasts forever. Second, recall your Desire to be Heard; that might translate to a goal you can push for. Third, visualize your future self achieving that goal; visualization is a good motivation method. Fourth, realize you don’t have to do it all in one day; take bite-sized steps so you can get back on track and reward yourself for achieving those small tasks. Those things will help you persevere.

Luck. This might seem the one item on the list you can’t control. Luck just happens, right? Maybe. But if we examine the careers of the luckiest authors out there, we’ll likely find they’re also the ones who work hardest and persevere. Maybe we’ll find they’re open to new experiences, fresh ideas. In short, maybe, for them, luck didn’t just happen. They made it happen. Maybe you can, too.

Hard Work. Ooh. The difficult one. Can we skip this? I’m afraid not. However, for a writer, ‘hard work’ is not the same thing as it is for a bomb disposal expert, a brain surgeon, a skyscraper scaffold worker, or a firefighter. Folks in those professions might be willing to swap their job for the ‘hard work’ of a writer. Besides, these six things overlap, so if you have a Desire to be Heard and a little Perseverance, you’ll be willing to work hard.

Maybe you’ve rethought your tally and now can claim you have all six things. Success is in the bag now, right? Well, not so fast. These things aren’t like on/off switches where you either have them or you don’t. Each is a matter of degree. If you’re not a successful writer yet, it could be that you lack one or more of the six things to a sufficient extent.

To achieve success in writing, you need to keep working to improve all six items, not just the ones you’re weak in. In this struggle for self-improvement, you’re not alone. There’s at least one other—

Poseidon’s Scribe

Writing Without Electricity

Recently I endured a power outage lasting over 38 hours. I’m not complaining about the outage. Many people have gone without electricity much longer than that.

Up until the dawn of the 20th Century, all people went without electrical power for their entire lives. However, many of us have become dependent on those tiny electrons flowing through wires, and it’s a major disruption when those particles stop moving.

Like most people, writers fall prey to this dependency We type on computer keyboards, we conduct research online, we write by the light of electric bulbs. It’s hard to imagine writing without these things. It is even possible?

Yes, of course it is. I wrote the rough draft of this post with pen and paper. I could have written it by candlelight, but used battery powered lights. Later, when the emergency was over, I transcribed and edited it on a computer. In fact, I create most of my first drafts—fiction stories and blogposts—using pen and paper.

I’m not suggesting you do that. You should write by whatever mechanism suits you, using the tools you prefer, when available. (Note: chiseling words into marble can be slow going).

All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t lose hope when the power goes out. You can satisfy your urge to write by different means.

You might even enjoy the pen-and-paper method. Freed from the computer, your writing might take a different direction. You might write about different subjects or explore new tones, settings, characters, or themes.

When the power comes back on, you can revert back to your accustomed methods. But you’ll always know you have a reliable backup.

The electricity’s back on here, but who knows when it will go out again? At least a simple power outage won’t slow down writing progress for you or for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 21, 2021Permalink

Putting on Your Writer’s Hat

Metaphorically, we all wear many hats. That is, we have many roles in life. For some of us, one of those roles is Writer. Let’s explore that.

I got the inspiration to write this post from this one, by Brian Feinblum.

You started your life with the role of daughter or son, and may still have that role. Maybe you’re a sister or brother, spouse, parent, employee, grandparent, volunteer. Most likely you’re a citizen, too. These are all examples of possible roles in your life. When you think about it, you probably have a good number of roles, between two and twenty or more at any one time. If you care about being a good person, you work hard to fulfill all of your roles well.

Problem is, it’s a balancing act. Each role requires time, and you only have so much of that. They all compete for your precious hours. That requires you to divide your time, keeping each plate spinning as best you can.

On occasion, you must devote nearly full time to one role and set the others aside. When someone you love becomes sick or injured, for example, your role involving that person must take precedence and the others must wait until the emergency is over. When there’s a major project at work, your employee or boss role predominates until the project is done.

When you must set several roles aside like that, the writer role is especially problematic. It’s a self-assigned role, based on your love of an activity, not a person. Unlike the role of spouse or employee, if you neglect your writing, it will patiently wait in the background, not complaining or otherwise reacting. If you set it aside for weeks, months, or years, there will be no adverse consequences.

Oh, your muse may squeal a bit. That voice inside, the one urging you to write, will yell loudly for a while. Eventually, that voice will fade and you’ll hear only an occasional whimper.

However, if you’re lucky enough, if life’s other roles allow you the time, you’ll remain a writer. You’ll carve out the time as best you can.

There are ways to make the best use of that time. Although the general guidance I’ll present below works for all your roles, I’m focused on your writer role.

In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey recommends you take each role and set long-term goals, then make shorter term plans to achieve those goals, then set aside time each week to schedule the most important tasks to advance the plans.

The goals and plans don’t all have to be writing projects (stories). The tasks that support them can also include:

  • attending writing or genre conferences,
  • reading books about writing,
  • taking writing classes,
  • self-assigned writing assignments to work on particular weaknesses,
  • researching aspects of writing you’re curious about or need help with,
  • critiquing other writer’s works,
  • reading classic fiction,
  • increasing your online footprint,
  • blogging,
  • updating your website,
  • getting an author photo taken, or
  • hundreds of other ideas that might help you achieve your writing goals.

This needn’t be a complex or overly organized process. Mold it to suit you.

Uh oh. Another role is beckoning. Time to take off the Writer hat of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 31, 2021Permalink

Break Bad Habits, Forge Good Ones

A sad fact of human nature is that it’s easy to form and continue bad habits, while it’s tough to make and maintain good ones. Although this post is meant to help writers, the technique I present could help anyone with a habit problem.

An excellent post by Leo Babauta inspired me to build on his thoughts.

Perhaps you’d like to break a bad habit of using too many adverbs in your writing. Or maybe you’d like to form the good habit of incorporating all five senses into your descriptions. Whatever bad thing you want less of, or good thing you want more of, read on.

The Habit Chain

Since I last wrote about habits, I’ve refined my thinking. I now think of them as a process, a chain with links. Habits start out as deliberate routine actions. You have to consciously think about them the first few times. They usually are triggered by something else, and I’ll call that a cue. The cue occurs, you perform the routine action, and get a reward. The reward generally satisfies some need you have. (In the case of good habits, you usually have to provide the reward yourself.)

Eventually, whenever the cue occurs, you feel a strong urge to perform the routine so you can get the reward. With enough repetition of this process, you start performing the action unconsciously, right after the cue, and you earn the reward right away. That routine action has now become a habit. The shorter the time between cue and action, and action and reward, the stronger the links are and the more ingrained the habit will be.

Obviously, the idea is to break your bad habit chains and forge good habit chains.

Breaking or Forging Habit Chains

  1. State Your Reason. This method takes some effort, so identify why you want to tackle this particular habit. Later, when the going gets tough, it will be useful to remind yourself why you set off on the journey.
  2. Commit to the Effort. This isn’t an ‘oh, well, I’ll give it a try’ kind of thing. This is heart and soul time. This is not the hen’s involvement with your breakfast; it’s the pig’s total commitment. You didn’t form the bad habit overnight, and you won’t forge the good one quickly either; this will take time.
  3. Obtain Support and be Accountable. Seek an ‘accountability partner’ who will periodically ask for progress updates and to whom you’ll report. Schedule regular meetings with your partner to keep on track.
  4. Identify your Cues. Find the event that triggers your bad habit. Or, to forge a good habit, pick an event that will trigger you to perform that good habit.
  5. Work on the Cue-Action Link.
    • For bad habits, pause when the cue occurs. Try to resist the urge to perform the habit. Also, think about alternate, or replacement actions you could take to satisfy the need, and work on performing those instead of the ingrained habit action.
    • For good habits, perform the desired action as soon after the cue as possible. Whenever the cue occurs, work on making the routine action as automatic as possible.
  6. Work on the Action-Reward Link.
    • For bad habits, think about why you crave the reward. What need is it satisfying? Are there other ways to satisfy it? If it’s possible to deny yourself the reward, try that and see what happens.
    • For good habits, reward yourself promptly after completing the action. Tightening that link will help ingrain the habit.
  7. Remind Yourself. Bad habits become so automatic that they follow the cue by reflex action. Good habits need to follow immediately after their cue. Therefore, you need visual reminders of your habit-breaking or habit-forging effort placed around where the cues occur.
  8. Permit No Exceptions. You’ll never break that bad habit or adopt that new one if you give yourself an out. The moment you backslide and make excuses for that, you’re well on the road to abandoning the effort.
  9. Don’t Beat Yourself Up. Okay, the ‘no exceptions’ rule didn’t work and you messed up. The cue occurred and you went back to your bad habit or failed to perform the good habit. Rather than giving up, or getting a self-defeating attitude, look back at Step 1 and remind yourself of the important reason you started taking these steps. Then, learn from the backsliding episode. Analyze what happened and why. Alter your approach. Consider new ways to break a bad habit chain or reinforce a good habit chain. Focus on the cue and realize there’s a moment of decision between it and the habit, an opportunity for you to change.
  10. Stay Positive. Maintain an upbeat and confident attitude about this habit-changing process. You can do it. You’re not doomed to repeat your past mistakes. You have the capacity to change for the better and you can make those changes work for you. Of course it will be difficult, but few worthwhile things are easy.

There you have it. Good luck! Remember, some habits are okay and require no change, like my habit of signing all my blogposts as—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 24, 2021Permalink