Erin's Journey Initial Reviews

Initial reviews for my first novel have been generally positive.  Most run along the lines of "It needs a little more polishing, but overall I couldn't put it down."  Very encouraging, to say the least.

I was able to send copies of the first three chapters to my writing group, and out of the seven people who read it, three people wanted personal copies.  That's AMAZING.

My main problem is that while the strength of my novel may be good, there is still room for improvement.  Part of it is practicing form, and the other is idea.

Let me explain:

Form refers to the techniques and skills implemented when creating a piece. Idea refers to the message the work sends; what it says about life, humanity, and contemporary issues.  Someone can write some very beautiful pieces, but what does the piece say about life?  What does it say about the human experience? 

My novel only has blips of these thoughts, and I think trying to jam those types of revelations into it would actually ruin it.  Maybe I can do that with my next novel, and practice doing these things in the short stories I'll be writing in the interim.

As far as form goes, I think I do decently well when it comes to expressing myself in writing; my background in poetry certainly helps in that aspect.  My main problem right now is the fact that I don't let the reader breathe between intense scenes.  One of my reviewers said:

"The action overload is another factor that made me slog through instead of devouring it all the way to the end like the voracious reader I am.  It was all gogogodododo."

In that effort, I've been drawing out some of the really action-heavy scenes, or deleting some scenes entirely.

Negative comments notwithstanding, there have been some REALLY great reviews:

"I couldn't put it down" (said multiple times)

"It was actually fun to read"

"I like [Erin] a lot.  She also terrifies me.  And is kinda gross.  And I want her as my cousin."

"The entire story is wrought with unnamed emotion (it's a very moving story of the bleakest type of redemption and the inner struggle of good vs. evil)..."

"I read that part while I was eating, and I actually gagged when I got to it."

"You have so much going on, and it made me want to constantly know what's going on."

"I love how everyone supports her and believes in her, especially Donnie."

These are REALLY great reviews, and looking through all the great things people have said makes me feel very loved.  It's hard to keep myself from crying as I'm thinking about them.

But as much as I appreciate the positive encouragement, I know that my novel still isn't good enough.  It needs to be better.  I know I can make it even greater, more moving and powerful.  I just need to keep working, and keep writing.

Excuse me while I get back to work.  :)

See you next week.

Sometimes Simple is Better

So my little sister recently said that I need more variety in my language for my novel.  I was indignant, to say the least.

First off, if you divide the number of words I have by the number of sentences in my novel, you come up with an average of nine words per sentence.  The number of unique words (words I used once and no other time) to words overall comes to 1:8.  Statistically speaking, every time you read a sentence in my book, you’d find a word that didn’t appear ANYWHERE ELSE, in my ENTIRE novel.

Aside from that, trying to show-off your giant vocabulary is actually a freshman-level mistake.  People seem to have this misconeption that in order to be cultured you have to know a lot of different and obscure words and read a bunch of different and obscure novels while watching a plethora of different and obscure films, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  That is such a lie.

Read what you love, watch what you love, write what you love.  Yeah, sure, you want to break up the monotony in your writing by inserting a couple of synonyms, but sometimes people will look up the definition of a word and use the correct denotation without knowing how the word is commonly used.  Take, for example, this instance that I experienced with a dude who had a penchant to add large words unnecessarily in his diction, and I asked him to please stop:

Dude: Yeah but saying larger words give this a… sonic… sonically-induced pleasure.

Me: Auditory.

Dude: What?

Me:  You mean “auditory pleasure”.  “Sonic” is more about the measure of sound, “auditory” refers to a person hearing a thing.

He concedes, and then in the back of my head I predict that he’d eventually look the word up to prove me wrong.  Five minutes later:

Dude [after looking the word up]:  Sonic, “relating to or using sound waves”, see? I told you I was right.

I’m not stating a tautology when I say that this mistake is juvenile; jamming in as many different words as you can to show off what you know is actually ineffective.  When writing, you have to keep your reader’s attention span constantly in mind.  If every other word is not only unfamiliar to the reader, but also inappropriately used, then the reader will have no idea what you’re talking about.  The result will be that you won’t come off learned and wise, but pompous and ignorant.

That being said, repeating the same word or phrase ad infinitum can get pretty boring, so some variety is warranted when it comes to writing to keep your reader interested.  My rule of thumb is to pick one or two synonyms for the principle word I’m using, and switch them out after every sentence.  Writing, of course, is not an exact science (about the only exact thing you can say about it), so you may discover a different method to keep your reader interested and while not coming off as either droning or overly grandiose.

But the only way you’ll find that out is if you keep writing.

So get to it.  See you next week.

G'naa Nursery Rhyme (Old Stuff)

Spring flower, spring flower
Why don’t you grow?
The shadows grow long
The bees hum low.

(I’m waiting for rabbit
Who’ll carry me away
to turtle who sleeps
till winter’s days)

Summer rabbit, summer rabbit
Why don’t you play?
The leaves are red
The skies are gray.

(I’m looking for flower
Who waits in the field
To bring to turtle
After autumn’s yield)

Autumn tree, autumn tree
Why are you bare?
You look so forlorn,
With no leaves to wear

(I’m helping the rabbit
Who looks for the rose
To give to the turtle
To melt winter’s woes)

Winter turtle, winter turtle
Where do you go?
You walk through green fields
Shell covered in snow.

(I’m replanting flower
To grow once more
And then I will rest
‘Till winter’s stores)

**********
EDIT 30JUN2015

Sorry for not getting to this sooner, but I've been busy (read: distracted).

I wrote this a while ago.  Obviously, this is more akin to a children's poem, and it was kinda meant to be.  The cyclical references to the seasons, natural imagery, anthropomorphic animals et cetra all are themes reminiscent to nursery rhymes.

The stresses in the words are... off.  But they are in a patterned off-ness, so they work... kinda.

Also, turtles live in the sea, tortoises live on land, and having a cold-blooded animal walking through the snow would be... unadvised, to say the least.

I'll be posting more random poetry, when I get  to it.  Right now, it's like 1:15, and I'm TIRED.  I hope I'll knock out, eventually, soon.

Anxieties, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Depression

I had a near meltdown last Saturday.

Now for some, a meltdown entails just sitting in your car, balling your eyes out, while stuffing your face with ice cream or other delicious fattening treats to help remedy that impending sense of doom and oppressive, malign, forces that weigh against your psyche.  I'm one for three on that.

I've had some... issues, before.  I've dealt with massive amounts of frustrations, confusions, feelings of inadequacy in the face of surmounting stress, bearing down on your face and back and thoughts until you just feel... crushed, upended.  Wrecked and ruined.  You're tyring to pull yourself back together and you're just grasping at straws; just a breath of wind dashes them apart, scatters them far, far out of your reach, until you realize that you were the one throwing them away in the first place.

Imagine having no sense of self, and you''re trying to draw those elements of your person back together, pulling them close to you, but they end up fitting all wrong.  You pull and you pull and you pull and nothing fits.  You feel that everything is broken, but the fact that no part of yourself is really broken, it's just that you can't figure out how all of yourself used to fit together.  It gets more puzzling, because you know that they all worked together, some how, and you knew that there is a away to get yourself to function again... but nothing fits, and nothing works, and the harder you try to jam the pieces of yourself back together the more you end up just hurting yourself.  You're frantic trying to get everything to fit because life is happening all around you and if you don't get yourself working again then all of the momentum you've gained is lost, and you'll have to start again at zero, and whatever happens you don't want to start at zero again, so you're desparate and you're hammering those portions of yourself back together and nothing is working and everything is breaking and then everything is just... broken.

Yeah, meltdown.

I hate my brain sometimes.  I'm convinced that the things I'm panicking about is really no big deal, but at the same time I'm equally convinced that nothing is right, everything is wrong, failure, failure, failure failure.  No matter how much you try to convince yourself how unsound and unreasonable your brain is being at this moment, you're just flying apart, trying to keep yourself together for the next day, the next interaction with people you will have to face.

I hate it when people worry about me, mostly because I don't want people to stumble over themselves in trying to help me.  I've dealt with this issue for a long, long time. Trust me, the effort is appreciated, but I'll be fine in a couple days.  Please don't worry about it.

It's hard to express into words what I was feeling last Saturday... what I've tried to write here still feels grossly inadequate.  Trying to capture an accurate (much less succinct) description of it...  It's just not possible.  All I come up with is just words, words, unrelated words.  No structure, no sense of organization or concerted thought, just raw... something.

I'm doing better now though.  I had a bowl of ice cream.  :D

See you next week.

“Just Read”, in the Melody of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance”

A good one, classic

Tolstoy, oh-oh, eh

I've read a little bit too much, much

All of the pages start to rush, start to rush by

How does he twist the phrase? Can't find the words, oh man

Where is the time? I lost my place, place

What's going on in the scene?

I love this narrative baby but I can't see straight anymore

Keep it cool, what's the name of this book?

I can't remember but it's alright, a-alright

Just read, gonna be okay, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, turn those pages babe, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, gonna be okay, r-r-r-read

read, read, just, j-j-just read

Wish I could put this story down, oh oh oh-oh

How'd I turn my pants inside out? Inside outright

Control your feelings babe, stories have twists they say

And we're all getting knowledge tonight, oh oh oh-oh

What's going on in the scene?

I love this narrative baby but I can't see straight anymore

Keep it cool, what's the name of this book?

I can't remember but it's alright, a-alright

Just read, gonna be okay, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, turn those pages babe, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, gonna be okay, r-r-r-read

read, read, just, j-j-just read

When I come through in the bookstore checkin' out that catalog

Can't believe my eyes, so many authors without a flaw

And I ain't gon' give it up, steady tryin' to pick it in the mall

I'ma hit it, I'ma hit it and read and do it until tomorr' yeah

Steinbeck, I can see that you got so much energy

The way you're twirlin' up them words 'round and 'round

And now there's no reason at all why you can't inspire me to read

In the meantime stay and let me watch you break it down

and read, gonna be okay, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, turn those pages babe, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, gonna be okay, r-r-r-read da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, turn those pages babe, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, gonna be okay, r-r-r-read

read, read, just, j-j-just read

Woo! Let's go!

Half mnemonic, sick, hypnotic

Got my Kindle, it's symphonic

Half mnemonic, sick, hypnotic

Got my Kindle, electronic

Half mnemonic, sick, hypnotic

Got my Kindle, it's symphonic

Half mnemonic, sick, hypnotic

Got my Kindle electronic

Go! Use your brain now, carve it out, work it, hustle

I got it, just stay close enough to get it

Don't slow! Drive it, clean it, lights out, bleed it

Spend the lasto (I got it)

In your pocko (I got it)

Just read, gonna be okay, r-r-r-read da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, turn those pages babe, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, gonna be okay, r-r-r-read da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, turn those pages babe, da da doo-doo-mmm

Just read, gonna be okay, r-r-r-read

read, read, just, j-j-just read

--------------------

Going through trying to find an old story I wrote and I found this instead. I completely forgot about it lol.

Once upon a time, I was in a writing class. In one review, someone wrote a limerick. We agreed that I would make a return shot. This was the result. hahahaha. Truthfully, making parody songs isn't that hard, though reading this makes me giggle a bit.

What was I thinking?

Daydreams at Night

I have a secret I'm going to tell you
And I would whisper it to you
In the dark
If you would only ask.

This secret is that I daydream, at night.

Sometimes, I'm a man not made of plush flesh and soft tissue
Stretched over these alabaster, ivory bones

I'm a man made of steel and wire
My muscles are whirring motors
My tendons are rubber-encased copper strips running
Down down down and
Up up up.

Sometimes, when I daydream at night,
It's a dream that I sleep into

A dream that pulls me
Down down down then
Up up up.

It's a dream where
The brass bolts of my feet do not
Stand on worm and weevil-infested
Crumbling, wet and clammy earth
No

My bed and blankets are a steel casket
The partition between pillow and sheet my viewport
To the stars
The white spackle-painted ceiling the eddies and arms
Of galaxies and nebulae

And I float
Hurtling
Faster
Through the white-hot stars
Through the blackness that holds them
Cradles them
Loves them

And I pierce through
Like a blinding
Sheet of light
I float, dreaming
Waiting, waking
Alone.
Quiet.
Peace.
Rest.

I wait as miles and light-years hurtle by
Planets and stars hurtle by
Particle tendrils of purple-blue plasma
Hurtle by
Distant memories of the life I once knew
Hurtle by
And I wait, and I sleep until I am found again.
And I awaken.
No more dreaming.

--------------------------------------------------

A while ago someone I know was super excited about this poem someone else we both knew wrote.  When this third party read his poem outloud, I had only one thought:  Really?

When I say that I mean that the poem in question was bad, just bad.  So I got inspired to write a bit of poetry, just to show-off, but mainly because I hate it when people aren't aware of their incredibly bad taste.  Granted, I'm not the best poet ever, and this poem isn't the best ever, but trust me, it was head and shoulders above what was written.

I hope you like it. 

I (Might) Have A Bigger Vocabulary Than Shakespeare

I have great news!

A while ago a read an article that compared the vocabularies of various hip-hop artists against the vocabulary of Shakespeare and Herman Melville's Moby Dick.  The researcher used the first 35,000 words of each artist's repetoire so that artists with a larger portfolio could be compared with artists with a much newer, or less prolific career.  Curious, I took my novel's first 35,000 words and had an app count the number of unique words.

6,138.  Based on the article's criteria, that's more than Shakespeare and Moby Dick.

(On a side note, out of the ~84,000 words of my novel, I have about 10,000 unique words.)

Granted, some of the dialogue in my novel is written in Spanish and romanized Korean, and this article probably has some faults in it's sampling and criteria that I am completely unaware of, but it doesn't hurt to do little things that stroke one's flagging ego.  :-)

This is also very encouraging because my first chapter (2,300 words) included A LOT of repetition and was meant to read very similiar to a children's fairy tale (simple language, simple words).  If we were to assume that if the first 35,000 words of your work contains around 6,000 unique words, then you have a vocabulary greater to or near Shakespeare and Melville.  That means that you need 17% of your work to be composed of unique words, and 26% of just my first chapter has words that appear only once.  Woo Hoo!

The trouble, of course, is not only the amount of words you know, but also how you use them.  By this article's criteria, Herman Melville had a greater vocabulary than Shakespeare, yet we all know that England's Bard had a HUGE vocabulary, and his artistry, subtlety, and depth of expression is still the standard that so many writers try to achieve, yet still fall short of (even disregarding popularity and grading Shakespeare and the successors that followed him skill versus skill).

A thing I've noticed in great storytelling is that great writers will have their characters or narrators make observations about life and human nature.  I remember the first time I read Anna Karenina, I had to set the book down and reevaluate my entire life for an hour.  For the next month, I placed every thought within context of that idea written in the first paragraph of that novel:

"Every happy family is the same.  Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Whoa.

Obviously, these fifteen words could've been taken out of an elementary schooler's vocab book, yet they hit something so intrinsic to life (and my life) that I had to step back and think about it.  No wonder Tolstoy is considered to be one of literature's foremost artists.

Andrew Staton (writer of "WALL-E", "Finding Nemo", and other movies) makes the same observation in a TED talk he did some years ago (https://youtu.be/KxDwieKpawg).  He said that every great story needs to make some sort of commentary on the human condition; that it should teach you something after it's telling.  Doing the fifth edit on my novel and reading some short stories by David Means and Caitly Horrocks, I realize that I have very little in my novel that talks about the entirety of the human condition.  Sure I do a bit of alliteration, allusion, antithesis, symbolism, meta-construction, and I sprinkle a dash of irony in my novel, but when do I say something REALLY important?

I don't.  So I need to practice more.

How do I get better at writing?

This week I want to talk about the road to becoming a famous writer.

Granted, I am not a famous writer, but I’ve read a thing or two about writing from famous writers, and I’ve noticed some patterns in what they say.

Many people ask popular writers “How can I get better at writing?”  And most reply “Write.  A lot.”  Or some variant of that answer.  As far as I can tell though, it’s true.  To get better at writing you need to write, and you need to write a lot.

I think people ask this question because they believe that writing is an easy enough thing to do (most everyone in 1st world nations know how to read and write after all), and they also know that it is possible to secure some financial stability from this thing they’ve been doing since elementery school.  The problem is that while most people in 1st world nations know how to write, they are not aware about what it means to write well.

Everyone knows how to lift something relatively heavy, but not everyone knows how to be a professional powerlifter.  Powerlifting, too, requires an intense measure of self-discipline, not just finding the motivation to go out and exercise, but monitoring what they eat and when, what muscles groups they will be training that day, how much sleep they are receiving (muscle is actually built during the sleep cycle when the body repairs itself), practicing correct form, number of repetitions, amout of weight they will be using, and a number of other things that I don’t know about.  Every aspect of a powerlifter’s life revolves around powerlifting, and they get better at it because they are constantly practicing.  Why should we expect less when it comes to writing?

Lissa Treiman, an artist who works for Disney makes this same point (look for “How did you develop your style”, and “How do I become a good artist).  There are stories of Kobe Byrant’s work ethic as well.  You don’t become an overnight success because you “kinda write”.  You become better, no matter what discipline you choose, because you practice all the time.  There is no magic technique, no special serum or vodun spell you can invoke to get better at writing.  You write, write, and write, and then you get better.

There are a number of other factors that help contribute to one’s writing finesse.  Reading is also a necessary part, and perhaps some “in born talent”, but I think it’s more important to talk about the self-discipline and work ethic necessary to get better at writing.  Jeff Goins says the same thing, as does Susanne Lankin, and Neil Gaiman: to get better at writing, you need to sit down and do it.  There is no other way.

So get to it.