We Lonely Here Mostly Too

Here's How To Finish That Fucking Book, You Monster

the960writers

That book you're writing is mewling again in the dark.

terribleminds.com|chuck wendig

[…] You wanna finish that book?

Here’s how you finish that book.

1. Stop complaining about it. I know, it’s hard. It’s easier to talk about writing than it is to actually write, isn’t it? And it’s extra-special-super-saucy-easy to get online and join with others who have joined the Aren’t Finishing Shit club, and it feels somehow productive to talk about not being productive. Trust me, I know. I’ve been there. I’ve done it. I’ve flopped about publicly and engaged in the illusion of productivity. But you gotta stop. I’m not saying you can’t vent about it — just vent after you’ve BARFED WORDS UP ONTO A PAGE.

2. Accept your limitations. You are not a perfect person. You are given over to frailties and foibles. Others have different frailties and foibles. Yours are yours, and others may possess privilege that you do not. (Also true: you may possess privilege that others do not.) That changes no part of the reality of how this happens: writing requires writing. […]

16. Forget your darlings and kill your distractions. You go to write, something distracts you. Phone. Social media. That bird you have in your pocket. Why do you have a bird in your pocket? Were you planning on eating it? Is it a sex thing? LET THE BIRD GO, WEIRDO, AND GET BACK TO WRITING YOUR BOOK.

17. Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing. What genre they’re writing, how many words per day, what advice they’re giving — just, nngh, meh, fuck it. Get shut of it. That includes any effluvium that comes frothing out of my mouth, too. If it distracts you, if it hobbles you, bin it and move on.

[…]

#writing #writing advice #Chuck Wendig #writer's block #i love this man

minaminokyoko reblogged

#writing #art #writing advice #Chuck Wendig #quote #bless this man

mshocklee

Relish in the unmitigated thrill of doing what nobody wants you to do. Nobody wants you to be an artist. But you do, so fuck them.

from Chuck Wendig’s “Defy Reality, Become an Artist” (via mshocklee)

minaminokyoko reblogged

#Chuck Wendig #writing advice #god bless this man #quote

proxydialogue

Here’s what I remember about being a young, untested writer: I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. Like, I understood the principle. You sit down, you tippy-tappy out the word jabber on your typey machine, you arrange all the word jabber into the approximate shape of a “story,” and then ???? and then step three: cry under your desk. And maybe at some point in the future, Big Publishing knocks on your door, chomping a cigar made of old parchment and he’s all like, “HERE’S YOUR TICKET, KID, YOUR TICKET TO THE BIG TIME. YOU’RE A BESTSELLER NOW, PAL — A BONA FIDE AUTHOR-TYPE! HERE’S YOUR KEYS TO NEW YORK CITY AND NEIL GAIMAN’S PHONE NUMBER. NOW GET ON THE UNICORN AND LET’S RIDE, CHAMP.” But really, what it feels like is that you’re the guest at a party. And you don’t know anybody.

Chuck Wendig Dear Writers: None of Us Know What the Fuck We’re Doing

Wherein Chuck Wendig continues to be simultaneously the most hilarious and the most helpful fuck on the planet to little proto-writers like me. Whenever I feel like I’m an impostor, or when I can’t get my Writing hat to fit, I read me some Chuck Wendig, and he reminds me that it’s okay to be totally clueless, and also that I really love the word “fuck”.

(via proxydialogue)

minaminokyoko reblogged

#then i've done my job because She Who Fights Monsters and The Holy Dark look just like thi #writing advice #writing #fiction #Chuck Wendig #blog post #gpoy

A story should look more like: 1. HEY LOOK A PROBLEM 2. I’M GONNA JUST GO AHEAD AND FIX THAT PROBLEM AND – 3. OH GOD I MADE IT WORSE 4. OH FUCK SOMEBODY ELSE IS MAKING IT WORSE TOO 5. WAIT I THINK I GOT THIS – 6A. SHIT SHIT SHIT 6B. FUCK FUCK FUCK 7. IT’S NOT JUST WORSE NOW BUT DIFFERENT 8. EVERYTHING IS COMPLICATED 9. ALL IS LOST 10. WAIT, IS THAT A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL? 11. IT IS BUT IT’S A VELOCIRAPTOR WITH A FLASHLIGHT IN ITS MOUTH 12. WAIT AN IDEA 13. I HAVE BEATEN THE VELOCIRAPTOR AND NOW I HAVE A FLASHLIGHT AND MY PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED IN PART BUT NOT TOO NEATLY BECAUSE TIDY, PAT ENDINGS MAKE STORY JESUS ANGRY, SO ANGRY THAT STORY JESUS GIVES EVERYONE MOUTH HERPES

Chuck Wendig on Critiquing stories (via cosplaycalamity)

minaminokyoko reblogged

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/02/03/meninism-fucking-really/

#Chuck Wendig #quote #god bless you #feminism

minaminokyoko reblogged

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/02/02/the-emotional-milestones-of-writing-a-novel-a-handy-guide/

#accurate #writing #author #writing process #Chuck Wendig

minaminokyoko reblogged

25 Steps To Becoming A Self-Published Author

#chuck wendig #writing advice #self publishing

1. NOTICE THIS LIST HAS MORE THAN TWO STEPS

If you thought the two steps of this process were STEP ONE: WRITE A BOOK, STEP TWO: CLICK “PUBLISH” ON THAT SUMBITCH, you need some deep brain rearranging. If you’re going to do this, you need to take this seriously, and not just upload every barf-bag with your name on it to the Internet at large. Some of these steps are practical. Some of them are about your mindset. These steps are not universal nor are they meant to constitute an exhaustive list. But this process should never include just two little steps…

minaminokyoko reblogged

So, You Just Had Your Book Published

#Chuck Wendig #writing advice #publishing #accurate #relevant

So, you go and look at your Amazon ranking. Which is a number that has almost no discernible meaning, and yet you stare at like it’s a Magic Eye painting where eventually you’ll see the image bleed through the chaos. You try flicking the number on the screen with your finger like maybe you can make the number jump up — tap tap tap – until you realize you want it to jump down, not up, and then you wonder if you’d be better off sacrificing a pigeon or a lamb or at the very least attempting to divine some news about your book from the guts of said pigeon or said lamb. You know people are buying the book and so you do another promotional salvo and three hours later the number increases, it gets bigger, which means it’s going the wrong fucking way, and in three hours it gets bigger again like it’s a snake that just ate a heavy meal.

#Chuck Wendig #500 Ways to be a Better Writer #writing #writing advice #self-publishing #novels #novel

[Your book] comes to fruition with the help of a good cover designer, editor, beta readers, and other within the self-published community. It's why I don't like the phrase 'self'-published--you should rely on others beyond yourself to bring your book to life.

Chuck Wendig, aka the smartest motherfucker to ever give writing advice, "500 Ways to be a Better Writer"

minaminokyoko reblogged

fixyourwritinghabits

“It’s work. It’s not always pleasant work. Sometimes it invokes a deep, almost psychic pain — an anxiety that blooms into an acid-spitting flower corrosive to confidence and craft. And yet, the words are the words. They only matter when they manifest. And you’re the magician that summons them into existence — their manifestation is on you and you alone. Nobody said it would be easy. Nobody’s saying you have to write thousands of words per day. You write what you can write. But that verb is still in place: write. Whether you write ten words or ten-thousand, they still involve you taking off your pants, setting your coffee onto its coaster, petting your spirit animal, then sitting your ass into the chair and squeezing words from your fingertips until you collapse, unable to do any more. It doesn’t matter if it’s good. Not now.It only matters that it’s done.Put your ass in the chair.No, that doesn’t tell you how to write.But it does tell you where it begins and where it ends: with you. You are a character with agency. You are a god in this world. Creativity is a worthless state of being without the verb that triggers it: to create. Creativity is the match. You still need to strike it and light the fire.You can’t just always bully your way through a story, true. A great deal of writing remains in the head. And it comes with patience. And craft. And with your burgeoning intuition. Just the same, the end result of writing is the written word.And the words only get written when you fucking write them. “

Chuck Wendig, “The Admonition of Ass-In-Chair, Or, ‘How Writing Is Actually Work’” (via jaimecallahan)

#Chuck Wendig #writing advice #god bless this man

minaminokyoko reblogged

25 Turns, Pivots and Twists To Complicate Your Story

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #Chuck Wendig #novel #novels

“These techniques all add up to one thing: the audience grows bored when the story marches forward in too-straight a line. Even the standard ‘escalation toward climax’ is a straight line that needs to be kinked up and broken apart from time to time. Which means all of these techniques boil down to: change shit up. Envision what the audience will be thinking as they read it. What do they expect? What is the predictive course they have in their head? Then tweak that. Maybe a subtle shift. Maybe a really violent one. But don’t be afraid to change things up. Go risky. Get crazy. In life, we adore comfort. In fiction, comfort is our greatest enemy.”

From terribleminds.com.

minaminokyoko reblogged

fixyourwritinghabits

storyaddicted

25 Things You Should Do Before Starting Your Next Novel

#writing #writing tips #novel #novels #Chuck Wendig

Advice for those looking to tackle NaNoWriMo or just starting a novel in general by Chuck Wendig:

Get your expectations firmly in check.
Find your own personal “give-a-fuck” factor.
Draw the map for the journey ahead.
Become wild west scrivening inkslinger, “Quick-Note McGoat.”
Know thy characters.
Build an (incomplete) world.
Test drive those imaginary motherfuckers.
Dig up all the glittery conflict diamonds.
Identify the major rules.
Find your way into the tale.
Also: Identify the Great Egress.
Learn all the appropriate things.
Suss out the fiddly bits.
The 13-Second Closing-Window-Of-Opportunity Pitch
Hell, write the whole goddamn query.
Know your word processor intimately.
Establish a daily schedule.
Build a timetable.
Ensure that life accommodates the book.
Have a publication path in mind.
Clean your shitty desk, you filthmonger.
The Backup Plan
Set it and forget it.
Commit, motherfucker.
Stop doing all this other stuff and write already.

Read in detail about this list at Chuck Wendig’s blog: terribleminds.

minaminokyoko reblogged

HOW TO KARATE YOUR NOVEL AND EDIT THAT MOTHERFUCKER HARD: A NO-FOOLIN’ FIX-THAT-SHIT EDITING PLAN TO FINISH THE GODDAMN JOB

“…no editing plan is ever going to be quite as simple as a writing plan (especially the “Big 350 No-Fuckery Writing Plan” I outlined last week). Writing, particularly that first draft, is often a purgative push — equal parts digging a hole and puking into it. It’s not a sniper’s bullet; it’s a clumsy machine gun spray held in the hands of a spasming bath salts addict. Writing is the part of surgery where you’re just cutting open a dude. Editing is the part where you need to know what you’re doing once you’ve got a fistful of spleen.”