“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.”
- Mark Twain

“Humor is an almost physiological response to fear.”
- Kurt Vonnegut

“You can’t deny laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the world”
- Stephen King

Even if you’re writing something serious this week, don’t forget the power of humor.

“What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax.”
- Samuel Goldwyn

Fuck the weather!

In recent months, I’ve come across more than a few books beginning with descriptions about the weather. Bad descriptions about the weather, at that; just shy of, “It was still dark and chilly outside, before the coming of another cool dawn,” and “He thought about how cold it was in the fading darkness of dawn, pulling his coat tight because it was chilly enough to see his breath in the frigid air.”

Granted, I’m exaggerating, but not by much.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “It was a dark and stormy night,” opening is so well known for its purple prose that it’s inspired an annual writing contest for horrible first lines.

One hundred eighty years later, people still open stories talking about the weather; they also begin stories with people waking up or just musing about everyday things.

Unless the weather is destroying something important, it’s a weak way to begin a story. Unless there’s a clown with a knife at the foot of the bed, or something as equally shocking, starting a story with a character waking up puts most people to sleep. And unless a portal is about to open up and suck a character into another world, beginning a story with a character thinking about the errands they have to run will only make me think about the errands I need to run and put your story down.

One of the most basic rules in fiction and non-fiction is the hook, that first line that pulls the reader in. Yet it’s a rule often ignored; writers, instead, opting for slow starts.

While Samuel Goldwyn was known for being a bit extreme, his advice is solid — It’s important to start off big and end even bigger.

Are you starting something new this week (an article, a short story, a new chapter), that can benefit from Goldwyn’s advice? Is there something you’re in the middle of that can be better? Can something you’ve already written benefit from a better hook?

How do you plan to shake up your writing this week?

I recently finished Haruki Murakami’s memoir about running and writing, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

While it’s much more about running than writing — even if you don’t like running — it’s worth reading if you write. The parallels between distance running and writing a novel are obvious even if you don’t run, but in Murakami’s hands, the parallels carry even more meaning.

There are so many great lines in the book, but this line when Murakami discusses his decision to become a writer stuck out for me:

“I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing.”

It seems obvious: if we want to be writers, we need to make writing a priority.

But I know people — some of them with the potential to be great writers — who always mean to get to writing, but never do.

It’s a lonely profession that seems attractive to many people, but because it’s not easy and it takes time to build up to the point you can finish even a weak novel, it’s easy to put it off and say you’ll get to things another day.

I’ve been guilty of this at times; it’s an easy thing to do.

At the same time, I’ve placed a high priority on creating the sort of life that allows me to make writing a priority most days. Obviously, for a writer juggling a day job, writing, and life, there are times other things take priority.

The important thing is making writing a priority on some level, and letting that priority grow.

For me, it’s meant passing by promotions that would have required overtime, taking away from time to write, exercise, and spend time with loved ones. I’ve spent vacation time writing, instead of taking vacation. (That’s something I’ve fixed in recent years — getting away from work and writing even for a couple days is important.) I’ve passed up some social events in order to write…and I’m pretty social and enjoy getting out.

Maybe for you it means waking up a little earlier and writing, or getting away from your desk and other people on lunch break and writing for an hour in the middle of the day. Maybe it means occasionally going to a library all day or even checking into a hotel overnight to dedicate a block of time to writing and remind yourself that it’s worth making writing a priority every day.

Murakami was a busy man when he really began focusing on writing. He owned a jazz club working long hours, booking musicians, working behind the bar, and running the business.

Somewhere in it all, he made time to run and write.

At the risk of losing other things that made more sense to him and the people around him, he placed the highest priority on creating a life that allowed him time to write.

Have you?

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”
- E.L. Doctorow

*          *            *

Writing well takes time to learn. One doesn’t sit down for a couple weeks and suddenly produce a bestseller.

The time needed to produce 85,000 words of even bad writing takes longer than it takes most skilled painters to finish a work of art.

I can teach most people reading this the basics of juggling inside 30 minutes, but learning the basics of writing takes much longer.

There aren’t too many shortcuts — There’s not a very fast learning curve.

You really do start with nothing and learn as you go.

*            *            *

While Doctorow’s quote seems to be about learning how to write, it can also apply to the act of writing.

Some writers love spending time creating individual character sheets, down to knowing what kind of soap the characters use.

I know writers who can’t begin one word toward their manuscript until they have a very detailed outline done. They find maps, gather photos, and accumulate a pile of information so they are ready when they start writing.

They learn as they go in that gathering stage. When it’s time to write, they know exactly where they’re going.

I’m the kind of writer who gets a vague idea and jumps in head first. Sometimes I’m under so long that I run out of breath and think, “That’s it — I’m drowning this time!” But then I find a reserve bit of air, or find a way to kick my way to the surface and see that it all makes sense.

I take the line in this quote about exploring to heart. I like being surprised by the story; with little more than a beginning, a middle, and an end, I learn about the story as I’m writing it.

I love seeing it all eventually come together…or fall apart and realize I still have a lot of work to do.

*          *          *

Whether you’re taking another big step in honing your craft, gathering all you need to get started, or knocking out a chunk of a story that you’re still not completely sure of, I hope you learn some great things this week!

“It is impossible to discourage the real writers — they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.”
- Sinclair Lewis

I’ve heard many working writers tell would-be writers that they should give up before ever really trying.

There are many reasons for this:

• Some writers feel the industry is already too crowded.
• Some writers know it’s a profession that typically doesn’t pay well.
• Some writers know if somebody gives up that easily, they don’t have what it takes to be a writer and they’ve done everyone involved a favor by weeding that person out.

For every writer I’ve seen who tried discouraging would-be writers, I’ve seen piles of would-be writers absolutely sure they would make it writing.

• You talk with them at parties, and they go on and on about how they will one day be famous…
• You see them in school, talking about how once they graduate, they will go to Europe and write the Great American Novel.
• You see them at work, talking to people about what they plan to write, but never seeming to actually write.

One day, you see most of these writers stop and move on to “real jobs,” tossing writing aside for something more secure. (And there’s nothing wrong with that.)

But there are writers who don’t stop, no matter what.

Work, deaths in the family, illnesses, children, and other things don’t stop them. If something much bigger than a writer telling them to quit won’t stop them, nothing will.

These are the writers with the best odds of making it; these are the writers who keep their heads down and write no matter what gets in the way.

Are you this kind of writer?

The odds are stacked against us all. If those odds don’t discourage you and you’re willing to put a decade or two into something most people drop after dabbling, you increase your odds of making it each week.

It’s the beginning of the week for most of us, so get busy writing!

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
- Henry David Thoreau

While a writer doesn’t have to pack it all up and move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere or travel to the far ends of the planet, it helps to have some interesting stories to pull from.

Sure, most people haven’t almost died on a battlefield, but most of us have experienced something that showed us how quickly life can end — how precious life can be.

Maybe you haven’t traveled deep into rain forests, climbed mountains, or sailed around Cape Horn, but something as simple as seeing parts of your home state most people ignore, or going to a bar and listening to the way people talk and hearing the stories they tell…that matters.

With 24-hour news stations, the Internet, books, and other ways of seeing the world through the eyes of others, I think it’s possible to write good stories while never leaving the comforts of home. But there’s so much more to a passage inspired by something you’ve experienced, rather than something you’ve only read about and imagined.

I can’t imagine Hunter S. Thompson’s writing having the same effect had he imagined it instead of lived it. Robert E. Howard’s boxing stories would have lacked something had he never laced up the gloves himself.

There’s something genuine about writing that comes from somebody who’s lived life, even if the life they live isn’t the life they write about.

There’s a reason so many writers find success later in life: they’ve lived long enough to be convincing.

I avoided trying to write “serious” fiction when I was 20, because I knew it would sound like a 20-year-old trying to write serious fiction.

We’ve all heard the advice, “Write what you know.” Many people take that to mean, “Write autobiographical fiction,” which is usually only interesting to the writer — not readers. What “Write what you know,” really means is, “Write what you’ve experienced.”

Maybe you’ve never lost a loved one in a car accident like a character in something you’re writing, but one can’t get older without losing loved ones and being able to pull from that. When you’ve seen natural wonders in person, it’s easier to write about breathtaking places in stories, even if they’re made up. It’s easier to write about a fight if you’ve been in a couple fights yourself. It’s easier to write about a character’s pain when you know what it’s like to hurt.

To write convincing stories, you have to be able to pull from something you’ve experienced in your life.

In order to do this, you have to have lived!

“‘In the time of your life — live!’ That time is short and it doesn’t return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is loss, Loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.”
- Tennessee Williams

NaNoWriMo begins at 12:00 a.m. on November 1st. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Each November, over 100,000 people take a vow to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Less than 20% succeed.

Fifty thousand words in one month is a challenge for even fulltime writers, let alone writers who are working fulltime at a day job, going to school, or taking care of a family.

I’ve never joined the NaNoWriMo challenge. While I love the energy surrounding NaNoWriMo, I work at a slower pace — I’m happy with my writing production and see no reason to change it. In that proverbial race, I am the tortoise.

But for all the hares out there, here are 5 tips to help you make it through “thirty days and nights of literary abandon.”

1. Use that extra hour! If you’re like me, you set the clocks ahead Saturday night/Sunday morning before bed when daylight saving time rolls around. If you’re taking part in NaNoWriMo, skip it.

Stay up very late tonight, and get up earlier than usual tomorrow. Do things tomorrow: run errands, go for a long walk, or hang out with friends…just do anything you can to keep yourself awake. Then, go to bed at a decent time Saturday night.

Set your alarm an hour or so earlier than you normally wake up on Sunday and start writing. When you’re an hour or so in and you get up to stretch and take a break, then set your clocks back.

BOOM! extra time coming out of the starting blocks!

2. Take breaks. I’m not talking about breaks from writing — I’m talking about allotted breaks at work.

If you aren’t already writing during lunch breaks, now’s a good time to start. If you’re like me and don’t take your two fifteen minute breaks during the day, why not begin taking them?

By writing on all your breaks during the workday, that’s 1 – 1 ½ hours of extra writing each day. Who wouldn’t want an extra 5 – 7 ½ hours of writing when they’re trying to rack up 50,000 words during November?

The time is right there if you use it.

3. Let everybody know. Let family, friends, co-workers…anybody who will listen know what you’re doing. Explain to the people close to you that you’re going to probably be a bit distant for the month. Give people permission to ask about your progress; if everybody around you is asking if you’re hitting 1,667 words a day, you’re more likely to reach that daily goal.

When you’re done, don’t forget to thank everybody for their patience come December. Don’t just say, “Thanks” — send thank you cards at the very least to the people closest to you who put up with the most.

4. Don’t edit! I know this goes without saying, but the goal is to get 50,000 words done during November — nothing more. Those words don’t have to be pretty, they just need to go down on paper or a computer monitor.

Resist the urge to edit as you go along. A couple hours editing over a week is a couple thousand words further from your goal. Over a month, that’s enough to put you at 40,000 words, instead of 50,000.

There will be plenty of time to edit after November — use the month to do nothing else but write!

5. Disconnect. Resist the urge to go online to say, “Just wrote 250 words!” on Facebook, Twitter, and the NaNoWriMo forums.You know the moment you do, you’re going to spend more time online than you planned.

Don’t check e-mail, blogs, or anything until you’ve hit your daily goal, or at least half your daily goal. Stay away from the TV, videogames, and anything else you can be doing instead of writing…even cleaning or exercising.

Disconnect from all distractions until you’ve hit your 1,667 words.

Then shout it from the rooftop!

*          *          *

I wish everybody setting out to tackle NaNoWriMo the best of luck! Even if you don’t hit the 50,000 word mark, it’s safe to say you will still walk away from the challenge with so much more than you had going in.

And if you find yourself falling behind, here’s a quote from a very successful writer (whose latest book is great so far!) to make you feel better:

“There’s no reason you should write any novel quickly.”
- John Irvin

Good luck to everybody writing — no matter what the speed — in November!

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”

- W. Somerset Maugham

I know what they are:

1. Put your ass in a chair.
2. Write.
3. Repeat often!