Random Creative Writing Terms Beginning With the Letter J and K

Creative Writing Terms A-E

Random Creative Writing Terms Beginning With the Letter I

J


Jargon- Words that are potentially confusing to most people either because they are highly specific to a field (like medical or police jargon) or because they are words with common meanings used differently in certain fields.  A biologist, a psychologist, and an engineer all use the word "stress" very differently, for example.  Go onto a video game developer's web page and tell them that Portal is a great game but doesn't have a very good "plot or story" if you'd like to have a demonstration of this.  Just wear your fire retardant gear.

Jeremiad- So Jeremiah (the prophet, not the unfriendly bullfrog) pretty much blamed everything that was going wrong with Israel on the fact that they though "covenant" meant "mostly optional."  As a literary term it refers to any use of high, flowery, bombastic language to blame the current woes of a society on it's morality.  Basically what every evangelical does when they blame hurricanes and mass shootings on the fact that people who love each other deign to want to get married.

Juvenile- Another term for Young Adult (or YA) literature.  Also how you characterize another person's online argument when it conforms to two criteria: 1) it contains a logical fallacy and 2) you disagree with it.  (If you agree with it you say "So true!" and if it is logically sound you make fun of the person's grammar.)

Juxtaposition- Literally this means the placement of two unalike things near each other which is why it can be used in math.  In writing it can mean the simple closeness of unlike ideas like the phrase ""Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -Martin Luther King Jr.  In literature it is a term that is primarily overused by undergrads who don't know what to talk about when they're doing critical analysis, but it is occasionally used correctly to point out how two elements work in tandem in a way that they would not alone.  For example, having a megachurch next door to an adult theater in the setting will immediately give readers a sense of the neighborhood.  The contrast itself brings out something new.  (Like sweet and sour chicken or hot and spicy soup or...I might be hungry.)  God might seem good, and Satan might seem bad, but when Milton has them hanging out together in Paradise Lost, you REALLY get a sense of each.

K

Kenning- Language play that wouldn't exist if prescriptivists ruled the world.  It is the combination of two words (the... juxtapositioning of them if you will) that leads to a whole new idea.  It was more common in middle English but you still see it done today.  "Beer goggles" would be a great example.  "Tramp stamp" would be another.  I'm working hard to get chair brain picked up, but it's slow going.

Kinesics- The reason you lost friends over that stupid e-mail.  This is the part of communication that happens with body language, facial expression, and other non-linguistic cues.  To put it bluntly, communicating without kinesics is very, very hard, and it's the reason so many conversations go wrong and so many people say "you misunderstood me" online.  It's not exactly part of creative writing, but it's in this glossary because YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT!!!  When you have no smirk or open body language, your light hearted thought might be read as venomous, and you can't fill your fiction with semi-colons, endashs, and P's.  When a writer is left only with the words themselves, and the word choice greatly affects tone then they must be good at choosing those words carefully.  Kinesics is probably one of the main reasons that people who don't read a lot and just watch TV and movies are almost never as good at writing as their sense of story, plot, character, irony, and pacing seems like it should make them.  It's because they're thinking with kinesics in mind and don't have the word choice/linguistic skill.

Creative Writing Terms Beginning With the Letter L

Guest Blogger Shannon Hilson: 3 Things No One Ever Told Me About Writing for a Living

[It is my honor and privilege to introduce Shannon Hilson to the ranks of Writing About Writing's guest bloggers.  Shannon is a freelance writer, producing sales copy, web content, ghostwriting and more for a variety of clients as well as a co owner and vice president of More Horror, a website dedicated to everything horror movie-esque.  She also doesn't just skip around happily because she made a hundred dollars after a year of blogging like I do.  Shannon is paying the bills with her writing, is a paid professional, and today we're lucky enough to have her write us a few words about what that's like without even charging me every penny of that $100.  You should check her out over at her own web page, The Creative Cat.]

3 Things No One Ever Told Me About Writing for a Living

By Shannon Hilson

As a writer, I naturally know an awful lot of other writers. Some of them are hobbyists or people who just want to write for fun and self-expression. However, more than a few of them hope to find a way to make at least a part-time living writing someday.  

I would definitely say that I’ve always been someone who fits best into the second category. When I really like doing something and I sincerely feel that I’m good at it, it only seems natural to want to make some money doing it and that’s pretty much how it was that I eventually reached a place where I actually make my full-time living writing. 

Yes, you read that correctly. I don’t just write for shoe-shopping money or when I feel like it between shifts at a standard day job. This is actually how I pay my bills and take care of my household. Even though I have bad days, get overworked, and need to complain about my job every so often just like everyone else, I’m proud to say I’m a professional writer at the end of the day. It helps that I’m a freelancer, so I’m my own boss as well. 

Even so, there are a lot of things about writing for a living that I didn’t really expect and that no one ever told me about. I sometimes find myself thinking that it would have been nice to have known another freelance writer or to have found a resource that actually could have helped a sister out a at the time so I knew better what to expect. That said, I’m going to pass this information on to you – my friend Chris’s loyal readers – to see if those of you who are considering life as a professional can’t benefit.

1. A job writing for a living is exactly that – a job.

Many writers who dream of actually making their full-time paycheck doing what they love most have a certain vision of what they think life is going to be like once they’re actually doing it, especially if they’re doing it from home working for themselves. They imagine themselves with endless amounts of time on their hands, zero stress, and a general feeling of “wow I finally made it”. I will admit that even I thought that before I actually became a professional writer – that writing for a living would be no different from writing for fun with the sole exception of a sweet paycheck I’d get to collect for doing it.

Yeah, that doesn’t really happen. While there’s a certain amount of personal pride that comes along with being your own boss and rightfully getting to say “I’m a writer” when people ask you what you do for a living, you will still very much have a job in every sense of the word. You will also quite probably be taken by surprise by how hard you have to work at it, especially if you want to make a full-time living. I certainly was!

At times, your clients will be just as irritating, demanding, and fussy as the boss you have right now is. They won’t want to pay you worth a damn either and they’ll constantly be expecting you to give up your days off, your evenings, and your vacations to cater to them. Even when clients are impressed by what you can do, they’re not going to treat you like you hung the moon or anything. They’ll most likely reward you by giving you more to do and more responsibility… but not necessarily a raise or a bonus. Sound familiar? It should! This is what happens at your typical work-a-day job and writing is definitely one of those.

Also, you’ll have to wear all of the hats involved in running your career yourself. You’ll have to find your own work. You’ll have to handle billing, customer service, tax management, self promotion, and so forth… all by yourself. On the one hand, it’s sometimes handy not to have to rely on anyone else to do things according to your standards. However – on the other hand – you don’t really ever get a break. After your writing for the day is done, you have to put in several more hours doing the other stuff. You don’t get to go “it’s screw this crap o’clock” and hit the bar with your buddies at 6:00 on the dot.

2. No matter what the reality is, your family will most likely not see your writing as a job.

Unless you’re lucky enough to have an unusually supportive family or one that includes many freelancers and creative types, probably no one in your household or immediate circle will take what you do seriously as a job. This will be the case even if you make good money doing what you do… and yes, even if you’re the primary breadwinner in your family. Unless they do the same sort of thing for their own living, people quite simply don’t see the diff between what you bust your hump writing for your clients and all the Facebooking and tweeting they do on the weekends. 

People think writing is easy and that writing for a living is nothing but getting paid to have fun, fun, fun in front of the computer all day long. If you work at home, family members will not take your office space or your work hours seriously. They will treat you like you’re always free to sit around and shoot the breeze, do them favors, or even run their errands while they’re away at their own jobs and they will probably get frustrated with you when you tell them to buzz off and let you work. 

You will most likely never get credit from the majority of your loved ones for how hard you actually do work and how many hours you really do put in to make your writing career a success. You’ll always be that guy (or gal) who’s “so lucky not to have to work” even though I can just about guarantee that you will wind up working harder at your writing than you’ve ever worked at anything in your life. It helps to have other freelance writers as friends so you can have people to vent to though.

3. You won’t be getting paid to write whatever you want.

A lot of people assume that if they decide to trade in their day job to become a professional writer that they’ll be earning their income producing exactly the kind of writing they want to produce. Food writers think they’ll be getting paid to write cookbooks or maintain a food column. Creative writers think people will be throwing big bucks at them to write short stories and poetry. Humor writers think they’ll be getting paid to maintain some hilariously witty blog day in and day out. Yeah, no.

Full-time freelance writers have to worry about earning a living, so they have to write what people are paying for at the time. These days, that’s probably going to be mostly things like advertising copy, catalogs, web content about (mostly) boring subjects, and so forth. Don’t get me wrong. Every so often you do land a pretty kick-ass gig writing a weekly column on a subject that you’re really passionate about or selling a story or article that you’re really proud of to a big magazine. However, that’s not going to be your everyday reality most of the time.

What you’ll be writing depends on what your clients need you to write at the time. If that’s filler web content about replacement stroller parts, sales pitches for erectile dysfunction pills, or dry-ass product descriptions for a catalog that sells hunting equipment, then that’s what you’ll be writing about. (Stop laughing. I’ve actually had to write about all of these things during periods when I really needed the money. Some more than once!) If the idea of having to do that type of thing bothers you, then you may be better off keeping your day job and just exploring isolated opportunities that sound more up your alley on the weekends or something. 

So is there anything about writing for a living that actually doesn’t suck?

Of course there is. If you’re really into communicating through writing and consider that to be a huge part of your identity, then I have to say that there’s nothing like the feeling that comes with getting to tell people you’re a professional writer and knowing that what you’re saying is actually 100% true. 

You’re not that guy you used to know back in your MySpace days who claimed to be a writer, but never actually seemed to write anything in between his shifts at Burger King. You’re not the tall tale teller in your own family who maybe had something published in his school newspaper 30 years ago and thinks that that makes him a professional writer even though he hasn’t written so much as a grocery list since. You really are doing what most other writers only talk about – you’re getting it done every damn day of your working life and earning your living via your passion. Not a lot of people are doing that, but you are. That’s a pretty cool thing at the end of the day.

If you work for yourself, you do get a lot of freedom to make your own schedule as well. For instance, before my writing days, I always worked jobs that required me to work almost every weekend and keep irregular hours that made it virtually impossible to have any kind of personal life. I always wanted weekends off. Now I get them because I’m the boss and get to make decisions like that for myself. This isn’t to say that clients don’t try to coerce me into giving up my weekends all the time. You know what though? I get to say “no”. That doesn’t happen so much at other jobs.

At the end of the day, only you know if full-time freelance writing is for you. It comes with some trade-offs the way every career choice does, but ultimately, it can lead to some pretty cool opportunities and a career you can grow with into the future as well.

[If you would like to guest-blog for Writing About Writing, then W.A.W. wants you!  Check out what few limitations there are and contact Chris Brecheen at chris.brecheen@gmail.com  I'd love to have a guest blogger every single Tuesday, so don't be shy.]   

25 Words of Wisdom From Fight Club to Writers (Part 1)

Part 1

1-15: The Non-Fighty Stuff

[I tried to steer clear of the biggie spoiler here, but minor ones abound.  If you haven't seen Fight Club yet, you really should before you read this article.  I mean it's like one of the best all-time best movies on any critic's list--watch the damn thing already.]

A toxic masculinity opus about white men being super pissed that they aren't actually entitled to EVERY-thing from one of the last generation's most cult-classicy films as a useful parable for writers? Anything's possible.

"Oh my god you think it's about toxic masculinity? You've totally missed the point of the whole movie! Watch it again, n00b. See that it is cleverly hidden satire...."

Yeah, I was already there the first time around. I got it. There's a bigger metaphor going on and I talk about it in the second part of this article. Plus the idea that it's satire of this stuff and Tyler is the bad guy...blah blah blah. And actually there's a pretty powerful (and shitty) thing being said about mental illness taking over people's lives and alienating them. But as poorly as Fight Club did, it did not become a cult classic among people who consider it biting satire of male fragility but rather folks who think we need a little more of this stuff in our lives. They revere Tyler and his plan and quote him often. And satire will always walk the knife's edge of risk that without a strong enough "tell" of actually BEING what it purports to be skewering, it really is either not satire. Or poorly done.

Trust me. Ask Sarah Silverman about it. She'll explain it.

And maybe after watching legions of dudes run to the "just satire" defense and enough others say "Hmmmm, this is kind of fucked up," let's just accept that it's going to sting when I punch your sacred cows, that it is a movie with at least some imperfections worth pointing out, and move on to the writer stuff.

Of course, a writer could learn a thing or three just by listening to the writing in Fight Club.  (Yes, I know it was a book first, and yes I've read it, but most people have only seen the movie, so I'm trying to make this accessible.)  The visceral descriptions on each of Edward Norton's voice overs are fantastic examples of the kind of concrete imagery that every writer should be going for.  Comparing someone with a "Glenn Close skeleton" or the smell of sweat to fried chicken is exactly the sort of detail that pops off the page and grounds your reader enough in the scene to be able to dig at those big ideas.

But it turns out that a writer can get a ton of good stuff from this movie without even creative reading.  Tyler and company have gems spilling out of their mouths almost every scene.

Don't worry, I’m not going to tell you that you have to make a conscious effort hit bottom, throw lye on yourself, blow up your apartment (though blowing up your TV wouldn’t be the worst thing an aspiring writer could do), blackmail your boss, engage in urban terrorism, or beat the shit out of each other to be good writers.  The actual antics of Tyler Durden aren’t blueprints for anything but getting arrested with a ruptured pancreas on about day two...or shot.  He was, after all, the antagonist in the movie. But Fight Club does have its words of wisdom that the aspiring writer can take to the bank...so to speak.

1- “When people think you’re dying, they really, really listen.”  “Instead of just waiting for their turn to speak.”   

Have you ever noticed how everyone in a Tom Clancy novel is either a hawkish yet intellectual type who knows how important violence is at times against intractable enemies, but always has reasonable measured responses when it happens to be the right thing to do, and loves democracy for all its flaws....or is a terrorist, a hippy who compromises all the security ever, or a nuke-happy putz practically salivating at the chance to destroy big chunks of Earth?  All the "right" characters are sort of Jack Ryan clones (and Jack Ryan is such a Clancy fantasy fulfillment that I would be surprised if you told me he didn't bring tissues  and lotion to a writing session). If you’re going to have real characters, with variety and depth and nuance, you have to step out of your own paradigm.  Literally, you must not simply understand a person through the filter of your point of view but step into theirs.  You must grok them. To do this, you must listen.   Listen like they’re dying.

A lot of writers struggle with the curse of “flat” characters.  No matter how colorful they try to make them, their existence within a universe of the writer’s bias is apparent.  They end up characters with an iguana and rainbow socks who are still flat.  You will already have your real worldview seep into your art without having to have your characters be mouth pieces or making your plots into morality plays.  You have to get into the mindset of people who completely disagree with you and not portray them as the ideological equivalent of keystone cops.  You have to understand them--not why they’re wrong, or why they think they’re right (but aren't), but why they really are right.  That means, as an artist, you can’t just be waiting your turn to speak--you can’t just be dying to tell people YOUR story, your interpretations, your opinions.  You can't just be burning with the moral imperative to get your take on the record and school some ignorant prig who doesn't do life right.   You have to listen.

There is absolutely no accident in the fact that this story comes full circle and this line happens at the end.  "Tyler, I want you to really listen to me."  Because as you can see below, one of Fight Club's main ideas is that everyone is dying.  Everyone.  Always.

So listen.

2- “This is your life.  And it’s ending one minute at a time.”  

Mortality is a huge theme within Fight Club, and this won't be the last quote to remind you that you're worm food.  Carpe diem!  If you live your life waiting for your ship to come in or that one last thing to finally be perfect, you will spend your life waiting.  You don't have time to live by someone else's yardstick for success or happiness, and you certainly don't have time to put off writing until some mythical tomorrow when there will be no strife or difficulty and you can just focus.  Your life is ENDING right now.

3- “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”  

There's a reason this line and the last one are within a minute of each other.  You are going to die.  You are GOING to die.  You are going to DIE.  Get it through your head.  You may not have time to put off writing until after the next big career shift or until after little Timmy doesn’t take so much of your free time (yeah right).  You can’t just get through the next thing before you get going.  There will always be one more thing.  Always.

Well....actually that's not entirely true.

There is one thing there will not always be one more of: tomorrow.  Eventually you will run out of tomorrows.  When you're in the ground and rotting, will you say "I lived!" or will you say "I spent my whole life getting ready to live, prepared to live, knowing that any second now, I was going to live.  Holy flaming Cardinal BALLS, my life was nothing more than the Blair Witch Project of fulfillment--just when I was sure I was about to hit the good part, the credits are rolling."

And like the Blair Witch Project, you'll just get a sour look if you demand a refund.

4- "We are consumers.  We are byproducts of a lifestyle obsession."

For writers, this quotation has a dual insight.  One, we need to be able to question the hum of culture and dissect the invisible assumptions.  We have to see the lifestyle obsession for what it is, for agree or disagree, we lack a degree of artistic integrity if we are unaware of it.  But perhaps more importantly, it is only when we step away from this obsession that we will really find the time to write.  We have to know that we might need a blanket, but buying a bunch of "duvets" might make the difference between being able to write most of the time (maybe even write for a living) and having no choice but to keep working that job we hate. If we can't possibly turn down overtime, take a job with fewer hours and a pay cut, work part time, or refuse to take work home because we don't have the privilege to do so, then that sucks and capitalism sucks, but if that shit is true because of our endless quest to quench an insatiable lifestyle thirst, it is unlikely that we will have the time to give writing the effort it demands.

5- "The things you own end up owning you." 

When you expect a certain lifestyle, and feel like all your things define you, they exert a power over you.  You think you've got it under control like Luke did in the throne room, but--like the Emperor--they won't shut up, and eventually they own you.  Consider how hard someone will fight to keep something vs. how hard they will fight to get it in the first place.  When you have the big house and the lawn and the fence and the plasma screen TV will you be willing to give it up for a job with fewer hours?  Or will you work all the harder because "a matching bedroom set would look really nice in the guest bedroom"?  How many decisions do most people make based on stuff?

Who really thinks, "You know, I should cancel my gym membership, the bottled water service, going out three times a week for dinner and nearly every day for lunch, move us into a smaller place, switch to generics if I can't really tell the difference, use rags instead of paper towels, and iron my own shirts," instead of thinking "Man, that promotion sure would help make ends meet around here even if it is a few more hours a week"?

6- “So I graduate, call him up long distance.  I say “Dad, now what?’  He says ‘get a job.’  ‘round 25 I make my yearly call again.  ‘Now what?’  He says, ‘I don’t know.  Get married.’”  

There is a formula for happiness in our culture.  It’s not codified, but everyone seems to know it.  No one acts like they “really” believe it because it's cool to know it's "all bullshit," but most people pretty much live their life by it anyway.  That or they seem really devastated about the fairness of "playing by the rules" but ending up divorced or in a crappy job. The thing is, when you're that pissed off about the outcome of something, it's because you had an expectation in mind.  (Very Buddhist, I know.)  You can't have an expectation if you're not buying in to the formula--at least on some level.

The best thing a writer can do is take that formula and burn the fucker (after driving a stake through it's heart and cutting off its head), scattering its ashes to the four winds.  Then, grab a spelunking helmet (with the light on it) and a pick axe and go find your own fucking happiness.  And if you end up doing the same thing, great, but it'll be because you wanted to--not because it was what you were "supposed" to do or because some great cultural myth told you if you did it, you would have all your Disney dreams come true.

7- “Reject the basis of western civilization.  Especially the importance of material possessions.”  

There is literally no way you can avoid the bombardment from every corner of your life telling you what you need to be happy and what possessions will define you as a person.   Not without living in a cave and then you'd probably be offered some free lichen and batwing recipes if you just watch a thirty second commercial for the new elegant cave condos. You can't even read that Chris guy's blog without seeing fucking commercials. The engines of commercialism would grind to a halt if we ever realized that the cheaper pair of jeans don't actually make us worse human beings.   And even though most of us are pretty sure WE figured that out, we don't want others to judge us, or god forbid even make their decision about whether or not to put their mouths on our junk based on it.  When is the last time you didn't make some pretty unflattering assumptions about someone wearing second hand clothes (but not as a trendy fashion statement)?

You can't get away from it.  But you can reject it.  It means becoming aware of it, and then realizing it is totally bullshit.  Material possessions beyond a certain point are completely unimportant.  Nice?  Maybe--no one is saying you can't have a nice meal or buy a sofa ever again.  But not important.  Not something you should care about more than the other things you think you would like to do before you die--which...you will....possibly soon.

8- “Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.”  

So I'm not here to judge whether or not you're a writer. I'm just NOT. That's not a job I want. That's not something anyone should be doing about anyone else.

Buuuuuuuuuut.....there are a lot of people who think they're writers. Some even go beyond dreamy fantasy and list that as their job on FB or something. The problem is....they sorta don't write very much. If you want to be a writer, you have to earn your ER. You have to sit down and write. You have to do it a lot. You can’t call yourself a writer and not write. Well, you can, but you're not fooling anyone. Eighties movies aside, posing as something you are not doesn't really convince people for very long.  I used to work with two "actors." You haven't heard of either of them (though you might hear about one of them, someday). One made it to an audition every month or two and got an extra part in something tiny maybe every year. He talked a lot about saving up for new headshots and the trouble with finding an agent in today's market. He always had a reason he hadn't really done much lately. The other left his shift every day to some audition or another and was constantly in theater, or getting roles as an extra, and even got a tiny line in some local commercial. No one had any problem calling the second person an actor even though he made every penny through waiting tables and had never been in a thing anyone had ever seen. He WAS an actor.  To the other they would say "yeah, but you're not REALLY an actor."

I can't even count the number of people who I've seen get shot down by friends or family when they call themselves a writer--sometimes in really hurtful ways.  (There was this one mother who just laughed and said "Oh honey, no you're not," and then went on to reveal that the person fancied herself a writer but really only wrote for an hour or two a week if the mood struck her. That was her MOM. It was The Harsh Exit off The Harsh Highway into Harsh City.)  So either be a chicken or don't, but pull the feathers out of your butt.

9- “First you have to know--not fear, know--that you’re going to die.” 

When you really, honestly, truly, genuinely, absolutely, positively, without a doubt get it through your head that you are working with a finite number of "I'll start later"s, you won't even need to consciously reevaluate your priorities.  They'll reevaluate themselves.  Waiting to live is the hallmark of a person who hasn't accepted that they really, honestly, truly, etc... might die while still waiting.

Really.

10- “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”

Don't forget that we're buying that shit we don't need, often with money we don't actually have, to impress people we don't really like.

When you really start to simplify your life, you might be blown away by how much you can cut out.  I'm not trying to be privilege denying dude here and say that everyone can cut their budget in half or some fucking bullshit like that.  Some people are barely scraping by.  Some people really aren't getting by--with a scrape or otherwise.  But a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck are living that way because they see wants as needs and the pursuit of material possessions as the entire point of life.  Of course...they would deny that if you asked them directly, but then they spend 10 hours a day, five days a week working a job because the idea of a second hand couch or unmatched furniture offends them.  Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of a yin/yang coffee table--it would really define me as a person--but I'm not going to work 670 hours as a teacher or 82 and a half years here at Writing About Writing to get one.

11- “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’ll be millionaires and movie stars and rock gods.  But we won’t.” 

Wanna know my personal theory about why so many people want to be writers?  It's because it's the "plausible" shot to fame and fortune.  Sure there are a few people who enjoy writing peppered in the ranks, but a lot of aspiring writers actually admit that they don't enjoy writing all that much.

This will require DOUBLE facepalm to really cover the epicness of the fail.

We all walk out of high school able to write.  (Well, most of us.  Kinda.)  We don't all walk out of high school able to act or sing or play an instrument unless we took "the geek classes with the losers."  (Which, by the way I took 15 semesters of in four years--you do the math.)   Even if we were in band, we don't know how to play the electric guitar or anything.  And the number of rock star bassoonists is just... appallingly low.  But most of the actors an musicians in high school who dream of fame and fortune pretty much DO dream of achieving that fame and fortune through acting and performance art/entertainment.

That leaves everybody else.  Writing becomes the "plausible" path to our dreams of fame and fortune.  People are (finally) getting a sense of how long and difficult it can be to get a break in Hollywood, but writing still looks easy.  I'm not making that up, I have met MULTIPLE people who have said they want to be a director, but they know that's unrealistic to just do so they figure they will start by writing, get noticed from writing, start writing screenplays, and then move into the director's chair later.

Sure...just like that.  Lemmie know how that works out for you.

Get over yourself.  Be pissed off if you want (you can even throw corporate art into a Starbucks if you feel enraged enough) but get over it.  There are a couple dozen household-name-type writers who are rich and famous.  That's out of thousands of published authors.  Most working writers still struggle to pay the bills even after multiple publications, and if they sell anything to Hollywood it is usually with the strictest contractual agreement not to try to involve themselves in what Hollywood does with....it in any way.  Ever.   Hollywood doesn't want mediocre writers.  They have a few of those already.  Maybe you've seen Prometheus?

12- “No fear.  No distractions.  The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.” 

I once had a sort of stupid fight with a friend.  It was about politics on Livejournal.  We both got stubborn.  We both thought it was really important.  Our friendship faded.  It was still important.   He got cancer, but it was treatable.  It was still important.  Chemo didn't take and he went into hospice.  See if you can guess what wasn't important anymore.

When we view life through a lens of false permanency, it skews everything.  Our priorities.  Our sense of urgency.  Our self reflection.  How much time we think we have to do things.  Even whether we really listen or just wait our turn to speak.  When we start to realize that we exist in a state of absolute impermanence, that's when things get interesting.  That's when we can start letting go of bullshit.   That's when we stop being afraid that people think less of us because of our car.  That's when we start thinking that starting up yet another "100+ Hour" role playing game that friends said was only "okay" (or TV series with mediocre reviews that is "new on Netflix!") might not be the best use of our time.  That's when we stop caring that someone we've never met on the internet isn't using a word in an identical way to us.  That's when the shit gets real.

13- “You are not your job. You are not how much money you have in the bank.  You are not the car you drive.  You are not the contents of your wallet.  You’re not your fucking khakis.”  

Even though every counter culture has its different "elitist snobs" to regard as the enemy (be they tweed sweatered intelligentia, hard bodied gym rats, corporate tools, rich S.O.B.'s in the Hamptons, patchouli-smelling hippies, or those "bitchy runway model types who only care about clothes"), they also have their own elitism.  Further, in every counter culture, no matter how grass roots their inception, there is a way to spend lots of money to rock the "appropriate" accouterment with which to define oneself.  Hundred dollar custom ripped jeans or thousand dollar goth outfits tell the real story of how that machine rage is actually going. Study after study after study shows that people will pay hundreds, even thousands of times more for the same product with a luxury label on it because what we are really buying is the status.  And that is because we exist in a lifestyle where our worth is based on money--not the merit of our ideas, the quality of our character,  the evaluation of our intellect, or even upon the ACTUAL quality of our cars and shoes and bags, but upon their perceived cost. Our entire system is based on the idea that there are things you can buy that will make you appear to be a better person and that you will not--you must not--ever stop consuming.

14- “You are not special.  You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.  You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else.”  

Wanna know what the single most common thing I hear from most aspiring writers is?

"I am the exception to that."

"I am the exception to 'read a lot' because I watch quality TV and movies and really think about them." "I am the exception to shitty first drafts absolutely needing revision because I've had this story in my head since high school, and I don't really like revision."  "I am the exception to 'write every day' because I don't want writing to feel like a chore."  "I am the exception to peer review because my friends say it's really good."  "I am the exception to learning grammar because I'm more about ideas."  "I am the exception to ten thousand hours because I'm talented."   I could go on.

Seriously, I could go on for....a while.

But I trust you get the point.  Writers need to stop rationalizing what they don't WANT to do as something they don't have to do or something that won't help them.  Because here's the shitty reality.  The closer you get to "success" when you're talking to writers, the more they stop sounding like this and start sounding pretty much all the same.  Oh there are variations on a theme, but they are all usually singing the same basic song.

Chances are, your creative process is going to work fundamentally like the creative process of everyone else because you have same basic brain structure and geography and biology. Chances are, your linguistic skill is going improve from the same things that improve others. Chances are, your work is going to be just about as shitty as most others' if you don't revise or get peer review, and almost everyone ever who thinks they're an exception to these rules isn't. Chances are you are your sexual attraction is based more on biology than personality. Chance are you will lose your ability to shift focus quickly from near to far right around age forty. There are always some exceptions. Always. But chances are....

15- “You decide your own level of involvement.” 

My most common anonymous email these days says "I don't WANNA write everyday/a lot/so much/10,000 hours/get peer reviewed/revise/etc...  That would make it no longer fun."  Then DON'T.  Jesus Tapdancing Toejamming Tittyfucking Christ, just DON'T!  It isn't figuring out the physics of nanobots doing brain surgery on rocket scientists while travelling faster than relativistic speeds through an area with 148,000 gravity wells.  This is just shit we do because we love it and those that have come before know how to do it well.  (Because it isn't shit you do to get rich or famous--I promise you that.)  If it's shit you love enough overall to weather some crummy parts and try to scrape out a living, have at, but it's going to involve some real work.  If it's so fucking horrible to face the idea of writing daily/a lot/10,000 hours/whatever that you feel the need to scold some two-bit blogger about why the revision burnses your skin, why in the name...of all the buttholes of the Greek Pantheon (not just Zeus's), and additionally the butt holes of all the mythical creatures of Mount Olympus, would you POSSIBLY want to be a professional writer?

I don't even... I can't.

The advice to write every day is given to people who say things like: "Dear Mr. King, I want to be a novelist like you.  I want it more than all the unicorn pudding in Atlantis. What do you recommend?"  It's for people who want to write for a living.  It is for people who want to be the absolute best at their craft as they can possibly be.  It is for people with some sense of being a Writer with a capital W.  If that's not you, then you don't have to be that involved.  You can decide just not to do that.  But if you're on a local community baseball team, don't get all wanked when the pros tell you their training regimen.  Don't pretend like a couple hours on Sunday afternoons (when you aren't missing too many players to some BBQ) is going to make you just as good.  It isn't and it won't.  No one cares if you don't love baseball enough to workout and practice everyday.  They just care if you whine about your dream of playing in the major leagues.

Not everything fun will be as fun if you do it as a job.  Not every hobby needs to be exploited for a paycheck.  If you want to just come to Fight Club once a month and not blow up any banks, that's cool, bro.  You decide your own level of involvement.

Part 2: The Fighty Stuff

Seven Ways You Can REALLY Help A Blog Succeed That Don't Cost You a Dime

It's been a long time since the days of paid membership sites (for anything but porn).  Even the most famous people's blogs or sites with multiple updates a day from professional writers rarely cost money like they did back in the 90's.   Blogs are ubiquitous, free entertainment that keep many readers enthralled for hours, and they often are labors of love to their creators, making no more than pennies a day.  Writing About Writing's total word count for last year would amount to a thousand pages.  I have probably spent a thousand hours (give or take) on it, and I recently got my first paycheck from Google for $107.00 along with a little less than $30 in donations.  You can do the math.  (Or, if you can't, that's about 13 cents an hour.)

Of course, any one of these bloggers would no doubt be thrilled to get a few dollars from a generous patron.  (My tip jar is just to the left if you're feeling philanthropic....at all....and my Patreon is to the right if you're feeling like a sustaining support is more your speed ~clears throat~.)  But we're coming out of a long, hard recession and not everyone wants to give money.  And not everyone who wants to give money has the money to give.  Even five or ten bucks can make the difference at the end of a pay period between squeaking by and not quite making it, and as much as I want W.A.W. to maybe someday resemble something kind of like a job (Narrator's voice from 2019: "It would"), I would never want someone to choose it over a sandwich and have to go hungry for lunch.  Plus, most blogs (certainly this one) are kind of two bit theater.  It's not like this is the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition in 3-D IMAX with surround sound caliber entertainment.  I'm lucky if I can get a post up without an absolutely embarrassing grammar mistake--to say nothing of the host of missing commas. I know some people might be well within their purview to think that sort of amateurism is not really worth their hard earned money.

However, if you like a blog, but are strapped for ciznash, there are lots of ways to support it and help it thrive that don't involve spending a penny.  And while I hope you might consider one or more of these for your pal Chris here at Writing About Writing, you can do this for any blog and help them, probably more than you know.  Google is getting smarter and smarter about filtering out keyword rich content in favor of things people actually react and respond to so the audience interaction to media you want to consume is more valuable than ever before.  In the end, a few simple button clicks might have a ripple effect that ultimately helps a blog more than even a small donation.

1- Become a member/follower/subscriber.  It really helps.  There are a lot of ways you can follow Writing About Writing, but picking one or two (even if you then proceed to mostly ignore the notifications) can be tremendously helpful for the profile of a content creator. A lot of external sources judge a blog's popularity by how many members it has. The number of members can affect everything from advertiser interest to google page ranking. Checking in every day and reading is absolutely awesome, but you could be more supportive just by becoming a member (even if you proceeded to turn off notifications and just kept checking in every day.

2- Share something if you like it.  No really.  No REALLY. NO.....REALLY.  Most blogs don't have some fantastically huge readership that will make its every post go viral. Their creators are walking a fine line between promoting themselves on social media and trying to keep all their friends from unfriending the ever loving shit out of their face if they don't knock it off. (I have three private messages in my Facebook inbox threatening me that if I don't turn down the volume on self-promotion, they'll unfriend me even though I am a font of witty and poignant insights, general hilarity, and spectacular cat memes).

Even if you have quite a bit of overlap in your friends-list with the artist or content creator you're sharing, you won't have exactly matching ones. You'll hit a few people that creator can't. (Even more true algorithmically.) 

The other is that a lot of people just ignore the bloggers self-promotion. Sometimes that's literally having them unfollowed or using an app like Social Media Manager that filters out certain posts, but even if people aren't using such blunt instruments, sometiems a creator's self promotion kind of....blends into the background. ("Oh there goes Chris again." *scroll wheel*) The simple act of resharing something can bring it back to someone's attention. (No seriously, I've been told more than once: "I totally just ignore your posts, but then I saw that Mary liked it, and I decided to give you a shot.")  Some of my most successful posts happened after I did everything I could to promote them, they died down, and then ONE person shared them on G+ or FB and they took right off again.

You may also have access to social media that the blogger does not.  For example, I have no karma on Reddit, nor am I interested enough in Reddit to get any, but one of my Skyrim articles was put on Reddit by someone who does have karma and it got me an extra five hundred hits.  (About three days worth of traffic at that time.)  They may have never even heard of Bing or Digg.  Being a bit of a cheer leader for the blog you want to support like takes about a minute, costs you nothing, and helps immeasurably.

3- Click those social media buttons.  Click like the wind!   I know many folks want to be an enigma wrapped in a mystery and never have a social medium "know" you. That's okay, but those.....FUCKING like buttons are basically running the world right now. Everything is algorithms and algorithms are desperately blunt instruments still....they can't tell if you liked something or loved it or it made you mad or made you think-even-though-you-disagree or you just want to be supportive of the person who posted it or.....  They just know that you clicked a button, so now they're going to show it to a few more people.  And so on and so on.

Like a post and not trying to be some social media ninja (which you aren't anyway because the system is literally designed to get information even from you)?  Click. Giggled a little? Click.  Image made you smile. Click.  Getting a little more liberal and free with your clicks for a blog you support will really help it. You can even like something but decline to post it on your wall (or feed) so that vigilante bands of your friends won't show up at your doorstep and demand that you answer for your endorsement. This tiny, almost insignificant effort, is unbelievably supportive. A lot of search engines (Google in particular) use this system of positive feedback as part of their search algorithm.  Some of my posts have gone from buried on the third page of a certain Google search to the second result simply because ONE additional person gave it a +1.  Plus it's just a nice way to say "nice job" that takes you only two seconds....tops.  It's okay to be generally conservative with your Like/+1's on the blogoverseasphere at large.  You don't want to just go giving out props to just any ol' snicker-doodle recipe.  But if you like a blog and want to support it, you can be a little more fast and loose about clicking the clicky.

Plus...you know...CLICKY!!!

4- Reply--especially to game the algorithm.  Who knows what's going to game the algorithm tomorrow. (Right now it's GIFs of all things.) But if you reply with....whatever gives that post the most algorithmic ju-ju possible, it's free, easy, and really helps the artist/creator that you're trying to help out.

5- Disable your ad-block just for that blog's domain.  [EDIT from 2019: I no longer run ads. I hope I never have to. I would like to scratch out a living without selling out to the worst aspects of consumerism. My blog is all donation and patron based. However, if you do love a blog that runs ads, this is still a good way to help.]

Is the blog you want to support running ads?  Most web-surfers are using Firefox or Chrome which have some pretty sophisticated ad-block add-ons that most people use. And you SHOULD use them?? Click the wrong thing without one of those ad-blocks, and a giant talking penis will jump out of your screen and start singing to you about how it enlarged itself with the help of a Nigerian prince. However, you can turn off the adblock off for just a single domain or even a single page and basically tell it "this is okay."  (And, hey, if that domain has annoying ads in other places, you can just turn it RIGHT. BACK. ON.)

Usually, unless you're on Pornhub or welshslutsholdingtrout dot com, the content you're enjoying is probably going to be running ads that are much less aggressive, and possibly relevant to the interests of the blog.  (The pages get "crawled" by some kind of word search program, and even though it sometimes gets things comically wrong, most of the ads will be of interest if the blog is of interest. My ads tend[ed] to be about Creative Writing programs, self publishing, computer writing programs, grammar checkers, books, and the occasional geek activity like World of Warcraft or video games.)

6- Spread the word.  Like jam on toast...or something.  An awful lot of blog traffic is from people who stop by once. They read one article or find an image they're looking for, and that's it. They never return.  Even if they like what they see, they probably don't come back. I'm a bit creeped out to find how much traffic my site gets from people just looking for pictures of herpes. (And that's probably not one of my more....shining moments.) Only one in about ten thousand people who stops by casually ever becomes a regular reader of any frequency. But something you know that social media is still trying to figure out how to detect is who might really dig the blog/content you want to support.  No social media will ever be able to say, "You know who would like this?  Billy.  Billy would totally dig the shit out of this." Introducing a blog to someone who you know would be into it might be the single best thing you could probably do to support that blog. Traffic is traffic, but a single fan (who keeps coming back and might themselves share or spread the word) is better than thousands of hits in the long run.

7- Everyone loves a hug. If you like a blog, or an article, here's a concept.  Say so! Tell the blogger. Most bloggers don't get a lot of positive feedback. Mostly they only hear when someone doesn't like something or they use the wrong your/you're. They get hate mail, sometimes death threats. They get to read people tell them their work is shit like they're not in the room. Give them a comment on a post that you like. Tell the blogger you like their work. Ask a question about something. Only the most outrageously successful and viral bloggers get so many comments that they won't greatly appreciate a few encouraging words or take the time to answer a sincere question. (Hell, I still answer the insincere ones.) This might not help the blog directly in terms of traffic, but it will give the blogger a morale lift and encourage them to continue. This isn't easy, and it's sometimes really nice to know that it's appreciated.

So don't worry so much if you can't bust out your credit card because you maxed it on groceries, don't think the blog is quite good enough to drop a movie's worth of scrill on, or just hate PayPal's problematic policies towards sex work enough that you can't bear the thought of them getting thirty cents of your donation.  There are lots of other ways to help that won't part you with so much as a penny and take no more than a moment's effort.

The Best Scifi/Fantasy Series Quarterfinals Round 3

So guest blogger Ima Lister asked me for an extension on his (and I quote) "Fight Club article; it's gonna be good."  I have no idea what he has planned but tune in tomorrow to find out.  In the meantime, it's time for January's poll.  Round 3 of the best scifi/fantasy series.

Why isn't this the finals?  Well because enough of you wrote in your choices that I'm going to be able to run two more polls.  That'll give us a list of the top twenty.  Those I'll mix up and put in two semifinal polls and the winners of those will go on to the big cahoona moona--which might have to start as an "elimination"to get us down to fewer choices.  It's going to be epic--in most cases literally.

So, by way of reminder the last two poll results are here and here.  So far the list of "survivors" going on to the semi-finals is:


The Song of Ice and Fire--GRR Martin
Lord of the Rings--JRR Tolkein
Dune--Frank Herbert
Harry Potter--JK Rowling
Dragonriders of Pern--A McCaffery

The Dark Tower--S King
Chronicles of Jhereg S Brust
Vampire Chronicles A Rice
Xanth Saga P Anthony
Chanur Saga CJ Cherryh

The poll is in its usual place down on the bottom left.  I know the poll doesn't show up on the mobile version of this site, and I'm not sure I have the skill to fix something like that.  If you switch to the web version, you should see it.  Everyone will get three votes.  I know some of these choices are a little less well known than others (a couple I haven't even heard of), so if you only recognize one or two, that's okay.  Just vote on the ones you do know and remember that the fewer choices you make, the more your vote counts for so if you can only think of one you'd like to see move on to semifinals, your vote will count for more if you just vote for the one.

The poll is pretty crowded.  I've already had to edge a couple of series out because of the author repeats.  So I think I'm going to have to put the breaks on new write in submissions unless you haven't written in yet, an you are WILDLY passionate about a series that hasn't shown up yet.  But please check the prior polls.  I got a lot of people saying "How could you leave out Lord of the Rings!" this month because they just didn't check to see that it was already in the last round.

The Mailbox- Plot Arc and Poll Results

[Remember, keep sending in your questions to chris.brecheen@gmail.com with the subject line "W.A.W. Mailbox" and I will answer them each Thursday as long as I have enough to do.  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.]  

I'm actually pretty sick today, so I'm going to answer a couple of really short questions and get back to convalescing.  

Tracy Asks:

Will you put your plot arc stuff in one place--like in the Reliquary?

My reply:

Yes.  Kinda.  I tag posts now (and I'm still working on tagging all my older posts), so you can just click on the current season to see all the posts.  I'll also put all the past Season posts under one Reliquary menu.  Give me a few days on that--I do most of my blog-logistic futzing during the weekends.  If I'm feeling better by this weekend, I'm likely to get the motivation to clean stuff up.  

However, there are two caveats.  One is that I can't really put a link to every passing reference I make to the current plot arc.  I only tag and menu those posts which relate to the plot arc in total.  The second caveat is that I'm only going to put old seasons in one place.  Consider the current season a reward for those who follow me every day--or punishment, depending.  The tag will still be there, but I'm not going to round up the relevant entries until the season is over.  So, really, the best way to follow the plot arcs is to just keep reading.

D Asks: 

When will you put the results of the "Best Sci Fi/Fantasy Poll" up?  And how could you not put Lord of the Rings on such a poll?  

My reply:

 

Funny you should mention that, D.  The poll results for this last month are ready, and I gave everyone ample time to vote.  (See below.)  Technically Lord of the rings IS in the poll, and survived, but it was in the last round.   These polls are only "quarterfinal rounds."  (Which means we DID get enough write ins to make these quarterfinals instead of semifinals.)  The top performers go on to our semi-final rounds, and then the big cahoona moona.  So keep voting unless you want to see Dragonriders of Pern and Xanth crowned champion.  

So....the following will be moving on to the semi-final rounds.

The Dark Tower

Chronicles of Jhereg.

Vampire Chronicles

Xanth Saga

Chanur Saga (even with two votes, it got more than the others)

Look for the next poll in a couple of days with more of YOUR write in suggestions.

Season Two

We're having a real “the show must go on” moment here at Writing About Writing.  On January 1st we woke in Los Angeles to the news that our sweet regal tabby Quinn had more kidney damage than a special diet and subcutaneous fluids was going to be able to fix and time was of the essence if we were going to get to say good-bye.

We spent the next six and a half hours driving north as fast as we could (past by, apparently, every asshole in all of California--all of them cutting everyone else off and slowing the whole highway down to get one car length ahead before they passed the next truck).  We didn't want Quinn to be alone and scared during his last moments, so we made sure the last thing he knew was that he was a good boy who deserved lots of scritches.

I watched a stage production once at a community college of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof where the actor who played Big Daddy had died literally the night before.  They told us they didn't have understudies and that the stand in would need to be carrying around a little book with his lines.  They apologized, sniffled a little....

...and then put on one of the best productions I've ever seen.  (And I don't even add "for a community college" as a caveat at the end of that.)

So with that idea in mind (with the possible exception of quality), I would like to dedicate the following to Quinn.  He was the most majestic cat I've ever known.  And he knew it.  I'm not sure if he just got the inside scoop that 2013 was going to be balls or if he decided he'd ruled Earth with an iron paw for long enough and it was time to see if there were other worlds to be dominated.

Regal to the last.

Either way, this one's for you Quinny.

~Lights come up on stage~

Daa da da daa daa.  Daa da da daa daa.  Ba da ba da baa daaaaaa....

~Bipedal pigs in tuxedos march in from stage left and stage right~

(Cedric as an admin cephalopod):                       It’s time to meet guest bloggers.

(The weird cheese guy):                                      It’s time for cheese with bite.

(All Guest Bloggers):                                           It’s time to get things going 

                                                                            and really start write.

(Leela Bruce):                                                     It’s time to change up lyrics.

(Singing vegetables):                                          Beware of copyrights.

(Guy Goodman St. White, looking pissed):        We'll stretch the bounds of satire 

(Ima Lister):                                                        and tow that line real tight.

(Voice of my Mother):                                        It’s time learn to proofread.

(Evil Italics Voice):                                             Hell yeah, that might be nice.

(Michael Dukakis--cleaning up a fight):              And could we not get into 

                                                                             so many goopy fights

(Nasty Anonymous Commenter 1):                     Why do we even read this? 

(Confused Anonymous Commenter 2):               Is it a blog, a place, or show?

(Nasty Anonymous Commenter):                        Has he ever heard of spellcheck?

(Evil Chris writing an “anonymous” letter):          Does he hate or love NaNo?

(Cedric on drums and various instrumental solos.)

(The SciGuy):                                                       It’s time to get to writing.

(Entire Audience):                                                Why don’t you get to writing.

(Cathamel):  Write or I’ll kill you.  ~looks at the camera~  No!  I’m not going to sing your stupid song.  I’m not that kind of muse.

(Chris Brecheen):                                                  It’s time to get to writing.

(All:)                                                                  On the pretentiousasional, 

                                                  descriptive grammarnational, 

                                     questionable tastinational... 

                                     this is what we call 

                                     The Wri-ting BLOG!

                                                   ....or Writing About Writing....

                                                                             ....or just W.A.W.

                                                                                                       Season Two