Category: Writing

Courage to Create, Evernote, Jeff Goins, Kristen Lamb, Ollin Morales, Time Management for writers, Time to write, Writing

Three Tips to Find Time to Write

Mona Alvarado Frazier
iStock #000015765730

                                                       How do you eat an elephant?

                                                   One bite at a time.~Anonymous


At this angle the pachyderm is going to get larger as he comes closer. So much so that you may give up your lifelong dream of riding the largest land mammal on earth. It’s too scary to deal with him all at once, but you really want to climb on board and take the ride of your life. It’s the romp you’ve envisioned for years, riding up high on that majestic African elephant. 

He seems tame enough, until he gets up close and personal. That’s when you see the enormity of the situation. It’s a huge undertaking to trust that beast and have faith that you’ll muster up your courage and take that ride. The closer he gets, the more you run various scenarios through your head. What if the animal balks, what if I fall, what if he doesn’t like me? 

It’s the same thing with writing. One hundred and one excuses run through our minds when we hit a hard spot in writing our novel. 

      “I don’t have time to write…my job…my kids…you don’t know my husband/wife…the dog…” 

You may have said or thought about all of these and have your own personal favorites. I  know I do. And with most excuses, there maybe a kernel of truth underneath the statements. Maybe many kernels-enough to pop yourself some popcorn. Been there, said that.

But before you go looking for a bowl I’d like you to take ten minutes (2 television commercials) to read some great posts on this very topic. 

At Courage to Create you’ll find wisdom from the Tao Te Ching: Live your life expecting that every new challenge will be difficult. Or as Ollin, a first time novelist, puts it:   

               I will stop asking that writing be easy. Instead I will simply ask that the writing get done.

Kristen Lamb’s post Stress Less, Write More talked about this very topic today. 

      Often we DO have time, we just lack focus. We don’t have a time management problem we have a values conflict.

In her characteristic style, her statement is a mouthful of writing wisdom in a couple of sentences.

Another favorite blogger of mine, Jeff Goins, tweeted an archived post today that lends itself well on the subject of finding time to write. Well, actually it’s about capturing ideas using the free application Evernote, an online note taking tool that Jeff refers to as his ‘external brain.’ To me, it’s like capturing time, putting it in a bottle and releasing it when necessary. 

Look, the Evernote’s logo is an elephant. Must be a sign. If you don’t know about this application, just follow Jeff’s simple directions. If you need more information, you can head over to the Evernote website to view and hear how diary farmers, students, small businesses, and memory impaired people (like me) are using the application. 

So, three tips on finding time to write the words we want to read.Promise yourself you’ll forego one sitcom or news program a day. Pledge an ‘unplug’ day. That’s right, no Tweets, FB, blogging, or pinning for 24 hours. Use that one to three hours to get your butt in the chair and write. 

You can do this. Your reading audience is waiting. It’s time to sit and deliver.

Okay, enough said. Remember, take it one bite at a time. Oh, and please pass the salsa. 


What writing pledge will you make for yourself?

   

Elmore Leonard, purple prose, Revision, slow passages, Stephen King, Toni Lopopolo, Writing

Want to Write Better? Kill Your Darlings

Mona Alvarado Frazier

The first time I heard the saying “Kill your darlings,” was when writing boot camp instructor, Toni Lopopolo, held up an 8×12 poster with a big slash over the words. The words originally came from Sir Arthur Quiller Couch:

‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’

William Faulkner paraphrased the quote to:


                                                       “In writing, you must kill your darlings.”


Stephen King, yes that SK, reiterated this advice in his book “On Writing.” The use of KYD is one of the first things he recommends after a first draft. To get to a second draft  he suggests cutting the first one by 10%. You can easily start with KYD.


And last but not least, Elmore Leonard’s take on this:

         ” …kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” 



Darlings are those beautiful bits of prose, a character, or setting that you just love. It can be a wonderful turn of a phrase, an insightful nugget of wisdom, a character, unique adjectives or adverbs. Sounds so precious, right? In and of themselves they sure do, but alas, they don’t fit in the story. They’re filler words, setting, dialogue, or characters. 


                            The words aren’t there to fulfill word counts- every word must count.


It’s important not to get so attached to these scenes or dialogue that you can’t bring yourself to cut them for the sake of the overall story. Another piece of advice that Stephen King and many other authors give: put your first draft away for 4 to 6 weeks then look at it with fresh eyes and mind. After some distance you may recognize the KYD’s that snuck into your draft. 


The KYD’s to look for are: 

  • Ineffective Dialogue: it rambles, is dull, makes small talk, or enters the rabbit hole
  • Telling: there is so much narrative there are blocks of black-show don’t tell
  • Purple Prose: flowery, fifty dollar words when simple, straightforward is enough
  • Slow passages: another ramble and the reader yawns or skips-slows pace
  • Characters: who don’t further the plot or is unimportant to story
  • Verb/Adverb combo: too many results in weakened writing-go for the strong verb
When you find these intruders….Kill ’em. 
If you want to show some mercy, then cut and paste them onto a document you title “Sneaky B’s,” or other such reminder. You may want that evicted character you worked on for months to go in another story. That beautiful or dark setting may work somewhere else. 

I know this is a difficult thing to do. If you can’t bear to KYD’s, have someone you trust read and wield the red pen. It’s only red ink, not blood, you can take it. 

How do you KYD’s? I’m interested to know since I have two MS’s in revision and I’m giving myself a deadline.