Why Write?

This month, in honor of Valentine's day my writer's group decided to write about why we love writing.  It's an appropriate question really, and one that every writer ought to ask themselves: why do I do this?

Fulfilling a Childhood Dream
I don’t know when I decided that I want to be a writer.  It happened sometime in 1985 or 1986 during my senior year, between reading Lord of the Rings, and The Sword of Shannara.  I looked in vain for any other type of fantasy worth reading but nothing captured my imagination quite as much as Tolkien or Terry Brooks.

And somewhere along the line I figured, how hard could it be?

I knew it was going to be a long time before I could get deep into writing.  I tried while I was in college, but college pretty much takes over your life.  I had no spare time.  Also, I noticed that my writing lacked authenticity.  It lacked purpose or passion.  I knew then that I would have to live life, and gain experience through the choices that I made and the trials that I experienced.  I was more or less compelled to lay it aside.

I wouldn’t pick it up again for fifteen years.

The Passion
When I did pick it up, I was looking for something entirely new to do with my time.  I’d grown bored and restless.  I’d watched the years pass by, the good and the bad, and I’d begun to wish I had something more to show for it.

This is probably the fundamental reason why I write.  It’s that creative passion, that yearns to be sated.

I tell everyone that wants to learn something new that passion will take them a lot farther than talent.  Don’t worry if your talent is weak.  Passion will help it grow.  Just stick with it.  Have patience.

Developing a Talent
I asked my wife what she thought about me picking up writing.  I was beginning to have doubts, and I couldn’t convince myself that this was worthwhile.  She told me that writing was a talent, and that any effort spent developing your talents was worthwhile.  We’re both LDS, and we’re deeply religious.  Developing talents is something you hear in a lot of LDS Sunday church meetings, so the message hit hard.

The Community
About a year after I got into writing I joined the League of Utah Writers, and found a writer’s group.  We started a group blog, called The Writer's Ramble.   I've been to lots of writing conventions.  My favorite one starts tommorrow in Provo, Utah.  It's called Life the Universe and Everything.

This has been an amazing experience for me.  It’s awesome meeting other people who like doing what I do.  I’ve learned so much from other writers, and the emotional support I get from them has helped me stick with it.  As an added side benefit I’ve made a lot of friends, which is nice because I’m kind of an introvert and a bit of a curmudgeon.

Social Media
Social media is like planting a garden. You have to spend time with it.  You have to put effort into it.  And the real satisfaction is watching it grow.  My wife and I have been blogging now for a couple of years, and it’s been fun watching the hits climb.  It’s been a challenge to find our voice and to come up with content that continually brings visitors back.

Benefits to Family
All of the things that I’ve learned have started to benefit the rest of my family, as they try and improve their own talents.  My wife wants to write a non-fiction book.  She’s started working on a blog to capture an audience, and I’ve been able to help set that up and we’re watching it grow.  My daughter wants to be a graphic novelist, and I’ve been able to talk to her about story concept, about audience, about plot, all kinds of things.

I Keep Getting Better
This hasn’t been like the other talents I’ve tried (like music—ugh).  Or singing (I’ll never be Steve Perry or Lou Gramm).  When it comes to writing, I’m actually getting better.  I’ve taken honorable mention two out of three times with Writers of the Future (the third time I disqualified myself by putting my name on the manuscript).  I’ve placed in a handful of contests that I’ve entered, as well.

I’ve improved in many ways.  I have a better understanding of character voice, I have a better understanding of story structure, I no longer say things twice, and I no longer confuse the reader by saying things that contradict each other.

Sometimes it’s frustrating.  I’ve been working on the same novel since 2010.  Every year I tell myself, “Next year I’ll be finished with book one.”  “Next year I’ll be ready to pitch to an agent.”  But I keep getting better.  Then I go and read in my writer’s journal and I can see how much I improve.  And I look at my wife and my children who are beginning to benefit from the things that I’ve learned.

And It’s all worth it.

Writer's Ramble: Seven Things to Get the Most From Your Writer's Group

Writing is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to learn.  I’ve gone through a lot of different talents.  Some of them I was good at, and others kind of fizzled out, but they all had one thing in common.  I could take a step back, I could look over my work, and I could tell right away if what I’d done was any good.

Writing is like trying to paint a mural while looking at your canvass through a cardboard paper towel tube.  You have to keep the entire picture in your head, and at any given time you can only see a small part of the scene.

I realized that if I wanted to get good, I needed people to read my work and tell me honestly what they thought.  Right away I ran into two problems.  The first was that unlike my other talents, writing requires people to spend time with my work.  It’s not like art or music, where I can make them take a look or sit and listen for a minute.  Reading can take hours.  So, asking my friends to read my story is a huge favor.  The second problem was that people get uncomfortable when they have to tell a friend that their writing stinks.

And everyone stinks when they’re starting out.

I needed people to spot for me.  I needed people who understand the craft, who can see my mistakes from a neutral perspective, and who know how to give advice.  I needed a writer’s group.

So here are a few things that I’ve learned, which help me get the most out of my writer’s group:

1: Submit your best work.  It’s easier to critique something that is polished and close to ready.  If you don’t proofread your work, people won’t know what to focus on.  Some members will go hog-wild with the edits, which can be grueling and discouraging.  Others won’t know where to begin, so they’ll give just a little feedback, which can lead to a false sense of confidence.

2: Let people know where you’re at.  When you submit, let your group know if this is an early draft or if you’ve gone over it several times.  Let them know if you’re struggling and need advice on something.  If this is something you just typed up, you won’t want them to focus on line edits and grammar errors.  You’ll want them to focus on the big picture, instead.  If this is a later draft, you can ask for them to proofread and look for spelling errors and punctuation mistakes.

3: Be specific about what you want.  Do you want your readers to focus on grammar?  Do you want detailed line-edits?  Or do you want them to focus on big-picture items?

4: Keep silent when people are critiquing you.  People are funny about giving advice.  It’s uncomfortable, and if they sense that you want to argue, they’ll clam up.  You don’t have to listen to everything they say, but you’ll get the most honest advice if you resist the urge to debate or explain your work.  If you do feel the need to argue, see if you can phrase it as a question.  Just remember, if your reader doesn’t get it, it’s not their fault.  Something is missing from your writing.  Ask questions and find out why.

5: Give a synopsis of previous chapters.  Unless you’re submitting your first chapter, people will not remember what you wrote in your previous chapters.  People skip meetings and they’ll miss one or two chapters at a time.  A synopsis is a good way to bring them up to speed again.  Something else that helps is a list of your main characters.  I can never remember character names from one chapter to the next.

6: Do group activities together.  In order to be able to give advice in the proper spirit, you need to build trust in one and other.  The best way to do this is to spend time together doing things besides just tearing each other apart.

· Go out together.  Have a dinner night, where you meet at a restaurant.  Make sure you pick a place where you can talk.

· Meet up at conferences together and hang out.

· If you normally meet online, have an in-person meeting face to face.

· Have a book-night.  Pick a book as a group and read it.  Then instead of having a regular meeting, go out that night to a restaurant (one with a quiet atmosphere where you can talk), and critique the book.  Our group does this once every 3 or 4 months.  This is a really good way to get a feel for everyone’s tastes.

· Have a movie night.  Go and see a movie together, then have a group discussion afterwards and talk about the plot.

· Go on field trips.  One of the members of my last writer’s group had a horse.  One month, instead of doing our usual meeting, she offered to meet us at the stables where her horse was kept.  She told us all about horses.  We got to go riding around the yard.  This event was so popular that we had people show up who hadn’t attended in almost a year.

7 Start a group blog.  The members in my group were having a hard time blogging, so I suggested that we start a group blog.  We brainstormed names, and decided on "The Writers Ramble".  You can visit it at http://www.writers-ramble.com.  Every month we pick a topic, and the last day of the week we get together and blog about it.  We put together a post on the main page, that has links to everyone's individual blog.  Each link has a blurb designed to catch your attention.  This week we're doing our first post.  The subject is, why I belong to a writer's group, and why should you, too.

In conclusion, a writer's group can carry you a lot farther in your career than you could get alone.  You need people who understand the profession, and have the skills to analyze and properly critique your work.  You can't do this on your own.