Write a Book, then Write It Again... And Again.

You have a story idea. Maybe something inspires, maybe you had this amazing dream. Maybe you just love a particular concept and have built upon it.

What are you going to do with it?

There are plenty of options. A screenplay, a comic book or strip, poetry, your alter ego, a novel. Maybe even inspiration for a painting. Still, most people do nothing.

Assuming you're a writer too, you went the fiction route (and probably the alter ego).

I believe I first attempted to write a book when I was seven or eight years old. My story wasn't bad in the premise. It reflected my own life, books I'd read, and recent news events.

Unfortunately my effort was abandoned for one major reason: I had no clue how to write. I believed that all paragraphs had to be exactly 4-6 sentences long. And I'd never heard of margins or the fact you could leave off dialogue tags.

When I discovered how to format, maybe a year or two later, my stories finally escaped being mere doodles on notebook paper and became words. (Notebook paper remains my favorite media.)

I won't pretend to have been a prodigy. My first efforts were probably much like everyone's. You should know the problems.

As I wrote my ideas began to develop and became better. They would change so quickly that often I would just have to start the story over. (They were innately long. I still struggle to write short stories. Or just finish a work at all.)

After that, there's actually not a lot. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. In between, I read mounds of books and drew character art. I never went to a workshop and my only book on writing was my grammar book. Other novels formed my style, etc.

Now, I consider myself born a story-weaver and dreamer, but I only call myself a writer because I've devoted myself to an unknown quantity of fiction. (I've probably passed the Million Words mark).

These past two and a half years, I've learned a lot about maturing my stories from the internet and Nanowrimo. Literary agents, other publishing people, and experienced creative writers have blogs that all have given me advice I desperately needed.

What remains is to create a polished manuscript and eventually find someone willing to publish it.

So how about you? Where have you come from as a writer?

P.S. This is my first attempt at this kind of writing post. Please feel free to give advice on where I have failed.

Thanks to Write a Better Novel for inspiring this post.

*bleep*

Okay, so I know a lot of people don't have these issues, but I do. That is, when my characters start cussing, I am at a loss as to what to do with them. I'm torn between making them clean out their mouths or letting them say what they mean.

As it is, they're only allowed occasional exclamations of h**l, d**n, or sometimes s**t. Which are pretty commonplace words, but my parents consider, butt, shut up, and heck to be bad words. Especially my dad. My mom has been known to let out such (the former) interjections every once and awhile.

I'm not even allowed to say cr@p until I'm 20, so should my older, worldly characters do so? Because when I just go %#@$, it looks like I'm saying something else, like f***, which I'm ardently opposed to. Because using a word that has its meaning is just embarrassing!

So it's a dilemma for me. I might go ahead and just withstand the lectures, etc, and the embarrassment of my siblings peering over my shoulders and harassing me about why I would use such a word, OR let some of the poignancy be lost by removing the. OR leaving the little $%&# and ____ there and let people just have dirty minds.

Thoughts appreciated.

Politics in Writing?

In light of the occasion, I thought I'd discuss politics in writing.

Should we put them in our writing unless it's clearly a political book? Or even at all?
Well, I know I do.
Title Page will hopefully eventually become a controversial look at the practices of the FDA and medical industry.
Across the Stars is more of a look into government corruption. And then, Identity Crisis has a political tone about corporate crime, etc.
In fact, a lot of political messages probably find their way into my stories since I have have such strong, controversial ones (in other words, I thought Ron Paul ROCKED). I should have been a man around 1790 in my views in how government should be. So... It's kind of inevitable, especially since no one's going to discuss them with a hot-headed fifteen year old. Gotta vent somewhere and save my poor family.

Rules, Essays, and Expectations

I have a paper to write. An Essay. I hate that word. Essays have no muse. I needs muses to write. And "muse" is that person who literally lives in my head telling me what in the world to write. But when it comes to essays they are disturbingly silent.

Well NaNoWriMo has a podcast up and it's about over. Oh well. I still am figuring out what to put into the side module here. It will come soon.

The great thing about this blog is that I have no pressure. I mean, there's like a standard when people know who you are. At least quasi-know. "Nope! Can't write that! Too weird!" The only rules on here are the ones I've set for myself and those are
1) Writerly-related topics only
2) No expletives

Really simple, huh? Oh and I don't plan to directly introduce my family to this blog. My mom likes to lurk my sites to see what I'm up to and I really don't want her to know that I believe I can have actual conversations with my characters or actually BE them. Strike that, I don't believe that, I pretty close to know that. And the fact that I have the back right side of my brain diagrammed into three different worlds in which my characters live probably would go over really well.

But with you, unfortunate reader, there is no "go over" so I can write as I please. YIPPEE!!!!!!
Brings such warmth to my heart, but now I've got to scoot!