Poetry isn’t for everyone. I love poetry for how it makes me feel, the same way some people feel about opera or ballet. But it wasn’t always that way.
I came to the poetry scene late in my academic career. Like so many kids my age, I thought poetry was either something written a long time ago (before they had books) or something in a greeting card.
I was taking an undergraduate literature course in college when the professor gave a lecture on poetry. She was discussing iambic pentameter and emphasizing — over-emphasizing, really — the beats in each line. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.
Then, pow! Like a code-breaker cracking an enemy cypher, I had this wonderful understanding. I not only heard the meter to poetry, I felt it, deep inside me. It made sense. It had order. Poetry had previously been a closed door to me, but I had been given a key to unlock it.
Every now and then, writers need the crack of a whip to bring them in line.
For me, it’s a deadline. I thrive on deadlines. Part of that comes from my day job as a copywriter, where everything is on a timeline. But I also know I’m a world-class procrastinator and will use any excuse to play one more round of Angry Birds. So to stay on task, I need to give myself a deadline.
This year, I’ve challenged myself to write and submit stories on a regular basis. I needed an excuse to write multiple stories this year. And while the Confabulator Cafe has afforded me some opportunities for confabulation, I wanted to do more.
Because I need regular deadlines, I checked Duotrope for publications looking for submissions and discovered anthologies of all shapes and sizes looking for new stories. The downside to choosing an anthology is they are often very specific in what they want. I don’t have a huge backlog of unpublished stories, so that means writing specifically for each anthology.
Writers are often encouraged to “experience” life in an effort to make their work more compelling. Well, experience doesn’t always mean living through a tragedy or performing some heart-stopping thrill. Some experiences are more … sedate.
When I was in high school — back before the Internet Age — my English teacher tasked the class to encounter a new experience and write about it. He provided a long list of suggestions and said he would be willing to entertain other ideas.
Now, my life up to that point had been pretty sheltered. I hadn’t traveled much. I had yet to land my first job. And my idea of a big weekend was going to the mall on Friday night and hanging out at the arcade. In short, my life was pretty devoid of new experiences.
I had planned to spice it up by asking my parents to let me attend a wrestling match in Kansas City. I figured the visceral experience in the ring would be equally matched by the rabid fans in the cheap seats. I wanted to be a part of something truly outside my comfort zone.
Devlin was hovering around my feet. Again. He always hovered when I was working. He danced around like a child needing to relieve himself. His diminutive size did nothing to help dispel the image.
“Do you need anything? I can get some of the ingredients for you.”
“I have everything I need,” I told him.
I leaned over the pot, watching the boiling contents change as I poured from my unlabeled bottles. Each one had a unique shape and color that told me what was inside. I trusted my memory more than I trusted labels. Labels could be changed. Not that I distrusted Devlin, he was loyal to a fault. But others had come and gone over the centuries, trying to change the recipe for their own reasons.
When we talk about the events of our lives, we often switch tenses without thinking about it. We easily transition from the present to talking about the past. But we rarely shift point of view, because our lives are from our own point of view and no one else’s.
But art, unlike real life, affords us the opportunity to write from different points of view. As writer gods, we can peek into the minds of multiple characters and see what everyone is thinking at a given time. It’s an omniscient power that some writers embrace.
Writing from multiple points of view allows the author the freedom to do almost anything in a narrative. For one thing, a story can have multiple stories in multiple places. Think, Game of Thrones, for instance.
I used to be a writer god, creating worlds filled with characters — each with a story to tell. The result was the most boring, bloated crap anyone would never want to read. My first manuscript was like Stephen King’s The Stand, but with multiple characters and storylines that all converged — in Kansas. And it had a religious message. And it was bad. Really bad.
When I was in college — this was back in the Dark Ages, before the Internet — my desk had several reference books I would turn to in times of need. Not surprisingly, I had a dictionary and thesaurus, as well as a worn copy of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style. At one point, I also had a Latin dictionary so I could pepper my scholarly papers with pretentious-sounding phrases.
These days, the Web offers writers a number of reference tools for writing and blogging. Of course, Google and Wikipedia are my go-to jumping-off points when searching for information.
I keep several bookmarked for repeated use. Depending on your needs, some of these tools may appeal to you.
OneLook Dictionary — This online dictionary has some added tools. You can search using wildcards (great for finding words that rhyme) or use the reverse lookup using a definition to find a word.
Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips — Not a reference book, per se, but a great site for solving arguments about grammar and style. While I don’t always agree with her conclusions, nine out of 10 times, she is able to give a definitive answer to those annoying little grammar rules (like when to use “lay” vs “lie”).
AP Stylebook Online — If you need a good style manual, I recommend Associated Press. The online version is constantly updated, so it’s worth getting a subscription.
Wikimedia Commons — If you’re looking for media (images, video, sounds) that you can use without paying for them, check out this source. Wikimedia Commons includes royalty-free and public domain media.
Of course, the best thing about the Internet is a never-ending supply of inspiration. From news to history to discussion threads (like this one about “glitch in the Matrix” stories), there is no shortage of great ideas to jumpstart a writer’s creativity.
Every day, I write for a paycheck. Every week, I write for a variety of blogs that offer me a chance at a little recognition. Every now and then, I pen a poem or short story and send it out into the universe for publication. But none of these are a reason why I enjoy writing.
Twenty years ago, I was the kind of guy who could never pass a bookstore without buying something. I’d purchase a paperback, a hardcover, or a bargain book without much thought about why I was doing it. It was a compulsion, an obsession, to surround myself with books. As a writer, I wanted to read everything and become one with the words.
Then one day — I remember I was in the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Topeka — I looked at the multitude of books in the science fiction section. Rows upon rows of titles, written by grand masters and new authors over the past sixty years. But as I passed a finger over the brightly colored spines, passing from story to story, something occurred to me: I couldn’t find what I was looking for.
All those stories, volumes of them, didn’t resonate with me. I had read as many horrible stories as I had great ones. And although I hadn’t read every great book ever written, I knew one thing for certain. None of these books were the story I wanted to read.
That story hadn’t been written yet.
This is why I enjoy writing. Not because I want to get published, or make money, or become famous. (Although I wouldn’t say no to any of those things.) But because I have an overwhelming desire to read stories that no one has written.
It’s up to me. I’ll write them. And maybe someday someone will read them and imagine their own stories.
I count once more and shut the bedroom door. Thirteen kids filled with cake and ice cream. A sugar rush an hour before bedtime. Probably not the most responsible thing in the world, but what could it hurt? So they stay up half the night talking, giggling, and doing whatever it is kids do at that age. They don’t need to know what’s coming.
It’s difficult to remember being that young. April tells me they’re perfectly normal. They all seem so full of life, so far removed from us. We’re the grown-ups now. And we’ll never get a chance to put things right.
This week has been a difficult one for writing. I could share with you a tale of woe, lamenting the various obstacles that have kept me from my writing. But it would only be half true. You see, while there are a number of obstacles to writing, I alone allow them to distract me. I am my biggest obstacle.
You know writers. We all have ADHD and are easily distracted by shiny objects. I’m no different.
The truth is, I’ve been working for several months to simplify my life. I’ve tried to remove myself from every obligation that didn’t help me achieve my goals as a writer.
I stopped writing film reviews. I ended my web design consulting. I curtailed my Facebook activity. And I’ve tried to cut down on my weekly consumption of television.
So you’d think I’d have plenty of time for writing, right? Not so.
For years, I heard my writing teachers telling me to put more of my own experiences into my writing. I’ll be honest with you, though. My life was pretty boring. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to read about me.
I don’t like writing about real life. I prefer the odd, the strange, and the fantastic. I’m more at home talking about people with superpowers than work, relationships, or my efforts to catalog my DVD library.
But here and there, my real life has started slipping into my writing. A woman in my short story reminds me of my wife. And the banter she shares with the protagonist is reminiscent of the way my wife and I finish one another’s thoughts.
Other characters, too, reflect certain aspects of people I know: an old friend, a mentor, or an obnoxious guy at work. Of course, I have to do something to make them interesting. So sometimes that guy in my office turns out to be a tasty snack for a demon or an early casualty in an alien invasion.
Mostly, though, it’s settings that I steal from real life.
I’m no good at imagining cities I have never lived in. I couldn’t write a hard-boiled detective noir set in 1950s L.A. I can’t write about New York City. I’ve tried writing about Florida, but it’s been 20 years since I lived there. I’m sure it’s changed a bit.
The only reason I set my current novel in Chicago is because I’ve actually visited there recently. Well, that and the fact that I destroyed half the city before the story began. The streets of “New Chicago” don’t have to bear a strong resemblance to what exists there now. I have kept a few of the neighborhood names, and some landmarks. But I had to spend hours pouring over Google Maps and Wikipedia pages to make sure I managed to get those details right.
For now, I’ll stick with people and places I know, even if I have to change them up a bit to make them more interesting.
As Jimmy Buffett once sang:
“Don’t try to describe the ocean if you’ve never seen it.
Don’t ever forget that you just may wind up being wrong.”