Getting Started (Sunday Shorts)

How do I start writing?

[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox" and I will answer each Thursday (and a quickie on Sundays because quickies are fun.) I will use your first name ONLY unless you tell me explicitly that you'd like me to use your full name or you would prefer to remain anonymous.  My comment policy also may mean one of your comments ends up in the mailbox. Craft. Process. Form. Content. I do it all.] 

Anon asks:   
Okay, so I feel like I really should get on with completing my writing... My main issue with this is the starting process, i.e. actually starting. So... Any suggestions from any of the users and admins on this page, about how to overcome that initial hurdle? 


Something that doesn't involve a meme, or the Nike tagline. :)

Much Appreciated Thanks :D

My reply:

The blank page can be such a hard start, can’t it? It gazes back at you with just too much untold promise and too much need. Once you are just fucking up as fast as you can, it's so much easier.

I’ve got a couple of detailed articles about how to start here, but let me give you the cheap and dirty version because I myself am cheap and dirty.

1- To long term develop the habit of sitting down to write, I can’t recommend Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer enough. It's been over a hundred years and while lovely books exist on craft, it has almost no equal on process. It’ll take a month or two of morning writing and then another month or two of writing during a floating half hour, but the ability to simply sit down and write on command is incredibly worth it.

2- To kick start a session that isn’t going well, try doing some timed free-writing exercises. This is sort of the mental equivalent of that string you have to pull to start old lawnmowers and edgers. Ten minutes of anything you think of–that you KNOW you're going to throw away–can help generate some ideas that you can take a little more time with.

3- If you're absolutely unable to even get started here, open up a book by an author you like and start copying it, word for word. You literally can't type as fast as you think, so pretty soon your brain will be out ahead and thinking of new ideas. When you're ready to write your own words, let loose. Just don't forget to go back and change the earlier stuff if you don't want to have to relive that scene in Finding Forrester.

The Answer Is....(Sunday's Shorts)

When are the "can't miss" articles? Can anyone guest blog? Where's the hate mail? Help without money? Are you skipping posts on Facebook?

Today I'm answering a few really short questions that have full answers elsewhere (but that might not always be easy to find).

Q: Hey I love your blog, but I just got a new job and I usually catch up on weekends. What days are the can't miss articles.

A: I'm a terrible judge of what is going to be a crap article vs. what is going to be "can't miss," but the articles that are a little more "meaty" and into which I pour a little more time and energy go up every Monday and Friday. You can always check the update schedule under the "Business Crap" tap at the top of the blog. My schedule changes at least every semester (including summer), but I update the schedule regularly to tell you when I'll (try to) get up regular articles, and when I'll be doing mostly jazz hands or slightly fluffier fare.

Q: Can anyone guest blog for you? Even me?

A: I'm not sure who "even me" is since your e-mail is a yandex account roughly equivalent to "samanddean3sum4evah," but there is only a very short list (mostly of prominent white male atheists, Fox news correspondents, and "Christians who get cameras pointed at them") who I wouldn't want to blog for me under any circumstance. Of course, there are a few limitations of content, and I'd say stringing a coherent sentence together is a must, but generally I am really excited to get all kinds of different voices and many different intersections with art and writing here, so it's always worth asking. If anyone wants to blog, they should check the guest blogging guidelines and see if we'd be a good fit.

Q: Is it possible to find all the hate mail you've ever gotten in one place. I want to show my roommate the hilarity.

A: That stuff is like crack, isn't it? You want the link to Rage Against the Brecheen. Generally every post that has any kind of "staying power" can be found somewhere in The Reliquary. Some of them are old and embarrassing, but there they are.

Q: What's the best thing a penniless fan can do to help your blog?

A: I've got an FAQ that covers this, but the best thing you can do is to share articles on your social media with a quote or some kind of "upselling" commentary. I'm a big fan of "Your life will not be complete unless you read this!" or some variant. Apparently you might also get some mileage out of "Clicking this will instantly make you have a threesome with Sam and Dean."

Q: Are you skipping posts on your Facebook page? Seems like some days you post but FB only gets a rerun. 
 
A: All the time. Facebook is cesspool of algorithms and post hiding designed to make page admins pay to promote their posts. Most people who want to see the content of a page see about 5% of what that page posts. Most people are there for the macros and puns and I don't want to get to spammy, so I limit my posting there to the articles I know will get a few likes, comments, and other engagement.

If you want to get every single post I post, there are several ways to follow me that are better than Facebook.


Don't forget to keep sending me questions at chris.brecheen@gmail.com

Why All the Filler? (Sunday Shorts)

Why not post less often if it's just going to be filler?

Don't forget to send me more questions at chris.brecheen@gmail.com

Alex writes: 

I've been following your blog for almost two years now (love it, by the way), and I was wondering why you do such weird posts about guest bloggers living in the basement and alien secretaries and posts about your life as a superhero and all that weird stuff. It seems like you're always super busy (no pun intended), but you don't even take weekends off. Why not post once or twice a week with your big articles? I don't mind the little stuff. I'm not complaining. In fact, after I figured out what's going on they're kind of fun. It just seems like if you know you're doing "jazz hands" you should just take a day off and write something bigger a few times a week. You might be happier.

My reply:

Sort of an appropriate question for our very first Sunday Short, Alex. Thanks.

There's a lot I could say about the success of a blog, writing every day, how to get the trickles from thousands of articles to add up to something that pays a bill or three, building an audience with a niche as impacted as snarky writing advice from a non-famous writer, and maybe Bradbury's advice about quality being quantity and how I never know what articles are going to take off, but the fact is that at the end of the day, all that crap is just me with a monocle and a snifter of brandy bloviating about shit that I wouldn't do differently if I found out tomorrow it was all wrong.

It's a big, steaming pile of my bullshit, Alex. The reason I blog every day, even if I write weird plots is because is the same (and only) reason to do any art. I love it. It's my work and my soul and on the worst days after I get some shitty post up that I know will never be read, I feel amazing.

I write all that weird crap because that's what I like writing. I enjoy taking a day every couple of weeks to tell you about my life in superhero allegories and telling you the fucked up things my "guest bloggers" do inside "the compound." I like constantly tinkering on the menus without shutting down the blog for an "admin hiatus" or cleaning up the old articles to show you how powerful revision can be.

And about the plots, if people skip that crap, fine. Let em. Not everyone understands what I'm doing with them, or why. And if they can't figure out that right around when a baby showed up, I started fighting a new super villain that enjoys stealing my time or that half of my creative voices stopped talking to me because one bitterly sarcastic voice who likes to make fun of the poofy bullshit that writers sell themselves to not write every day like I still manage to we keep getting attacked by a mystery blogger, that's fine.

I love having an audience, and I hope it grows, but I'm writing for myself.