Tag: (business) Writing

Editing Rant: Lots is better than one

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by Jessica Ruscello on Unsplash

If you have been in the creative community any length of time, you might have heard the story about a pottery teacher. They ran an experiment, splitting the class in two – one group would have their grade based on the Best Piece, and the other group would have their grade based on the Amount of Pieces. (Variations on the story includes the grading period being a week to an entire term. Sometimes the group instructed to make a lot of pieces were told they could pick one out of the group to show as an example.)

What happens in the Best Piece group get stuck on their focus for perfection. They don’t have fun. They hardly make any art. And they do not experiment.

The group instructed to make lots, well, they had failures … and successes. They had some strange stuff as they explored different clays, and shapes, and techniques, and firing temperatures, and glazes. They had fun, made lot of art, and some of it was incredible. Overall they produced better art by making 20 or 50 pieces, then concentrating on just one.

I recently read several books by one author that showed her growth during a series of rapid releases in a two-year period. I actually do this a lot, reading several books by an author, because I want to see how authors grow over time. The first book tends to have first book issues. The second book straightens out some of them. But the fifth book, the author really has come into their own voice and style. And this progression is the same if the author did one book a year or all five books in the same year.

At this point, NaNoWriMo is nearly half over. Thousands of people around the world are writing incredibly messy first drafts. Some are going to spend a year (or ten) polishing the LIFE OUT OF THE STORY, until it is, in their view, perfection. Others will take this messy first draft, unfired, unedited, unglazed, and say it is good enough and publish it. But the real winners of NaNoWriMo are the ones who take a couple of draft passes, getting the story straight and correcting the grammar, send out the book to be beta, and then move onto the next story. Try a new genre, explore a new way to work a plot twist, extend the series – somehow they push themselves with their craft. When the NaNoWriMo manuscript comes back from beta, they polish the tale some more WITH THE NEW SKILLS they have picked up from the new story, and continue the process until it is GOOD ENOUGH to sell. Not perfect. But good enough. Now the polish process might take a year or two because Real Life demands its own time, but the point is they are attempting to produce like they are in the second group, making all the things, not in the first group, with one opus.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

You don’t learn to play an instrument working on just one song forever. You don’t learn to do embroidery by mastering one stitch. You don’t become a better painter with just one canvas you keep touching up.

And you don’t become a better writer with just one story.

Write long, write short. Write epically, write small. Write lyrically, write crap. But write.

Have a great NaNoWriMo – whatever word count you end up with – is still a count, and still counts.

Magical Words: Running and Writing

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Photo by sporlab on Unsplash

Going the distance writing in hard. Only these past couple years have I managed anything close to a long form. Part of my problem is I think of writing like running sprints, getting it done and over with as quickly as possible. Writing long form is a marathon.

I do marathon work all the time in my gigs – I count down the days for taxes, I count the packages for the post office, I record the number of words in a book to edit.

Christina Henry did a guest blog for Magical Words on October 24, 2014 on “of Running and Writing”, explaining how running a marathon helped her finally finish a novel. Instead of concentrating on the destination, she started working on the journey.

My biggest take away is

When you actually run the race you never think, “One mile down, 25 to go.” Instead you think,  “One more mile. One more mile.” And slowly but surely you get to the finish line

My personal problem with long-form is I do think “one mile down, 25 to go.” I accomplish so much more when I “write today, write today, write today”.

Maybe the post will inspire you for longer creative works. Again the URL is: http://www.magicalwords.net/specialgueststars/christina-henry-of-running-and-writing/

Magical Words: Motivation (D is for Diver)

Erin Penn 2 Comments

Photo by Ricky Shirke on Unsplash, meme words added by Erin Penn

The admonition of the meme is harsher than my normal, but I think the picture captures the base of it well. The dancer works every.single.day to have her body respond elegantly and swiftly to the dance requirements. Her workouts don’t only include the present dance, but other muscle memory building techniques, stretches, balance, movement, and freezes.

Writing is the same. It can’t be a sometime thing. It can’t be put off until tomorrow, and then tomorrow again and then tomorrow again. A to Z blog tour can help break the cycle of “I’ll find time to write tomorrow.” Writing muscles – from speed of typing, creative flow, self-editing as you go, having the characters actually talk to you, grammar and paragraph flow, and dozen of other techniques and skills, need constant work. Of course sometime life interferes, just like sometime a dancer can’t dance.

I’ve been a better writer. I write faster and more, when I write daily. It’s what works for me. A doctor-author-friend can only write on weekends; this method works for him. What writing exercise builds your muscles and gets you to your goals, that is the path you need to dance on.

I got the meme words from Lucienne Diver in her Magical Words post from October 3rd, 2012, “Motivation”. The URL is:

REPRINT: Exposure

Erin Penn Leave a comment

Meme Exposure

Image acquired from the internet hive mind

Exposure will Burn

Have you ever been asked to do something for free and the person sells it to you as “exposure”? Happens all the time for writers, artists, musicians, and web programmers. And while some exposure is good, having only exposure goes from getting a good tan to receiving third degree burns. Frankly, most creative people are getting tired of being burned by exposure.

The above meme is a recent reaction to exposure burn.

Why the strong reaction from the musicians? Well, I know several amazing singers who are expected to sing at family weddings for free. The bridal couple chooses a song, the singer has to learn the song, practice it either to music or a live musician, present it at the recital wedding, and then finally perform it at the wedding. Basically a total of 10 to 20 hours effort, not including travel time, getting a hotel room if required, etc. All for free. Maybe getting a meal out of it for the wedding reception; the singer rarely gets to attend the recital dinner. Oh, and if they actually attend that reception, half the time they are asked to sing again. Something off the cuff.

And what do they get from this “exposure?” Another family obligation when the next person gets married when they have to do it all for free again.

Make a website for free, other people expect to get the same results. Give massages to your friends; they talk to their friends who also want free massages. Make art, expect to give it away. Edit for friends, and continue to edit for friends. No food on the table, no roof over the head, and no giving up the day job.

That is not to say “exposure” is not part of creative people’s advertising plans. For example, a writer rolling out a new book may go on a blog tour providing content to dozens of sites. Words written without pay. But it is “pay”, because it is part of the advertising; instead of renting billboards with money, the writer is spending time to advertise. In other words instead of spending $21 on Facebook to expand a post, they spend three hours (worth $7 per hour) to find bloggers willing to host them, write four posts, send them out, and then respond to any comments. Instead of spending money out-of-pocket, they spend time-off-the-clock. And practically anyone in the modern world will tell you they have even less time than money. Time is expensive.

Exposure is expensive because it is time not spent earning money or being with family and friends. The object for artists is to have exposure make them look good, be useful, like a tan. Which means they need to choose and prepare for that exposure like time at a beach. Does the exposure produce the results they need, or is it just going to produce a burn?

If you know creative people and ask them to do things, think about the cost they are incurring, not just money-wise but time-wise. Don’t try to sell it as “exposure.” If at all possible, reimburse their money costs. Accept it if they say “no” the same way you would if you asked for money and they had to turn you down. Sometimes they are “broke” and have nothing to give for the occasion.

And realize just what a “yes” means. They are offering is a true gift to you.  It is a wedding gift, birthday gift, … a gift from the heart … and treat it as such … because they are giving themselves to you.

 

Magical Words: Sit Down, Shut Up, and Write!

Erin Penn

Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

The title is a little harsher than I normally see from Edmund Schubert. He is the nice editor-writer I want to grow up to be, but in the Magical Word article “Sit Down, Shut Up, and Write!” on November 20, 2010, he lays down some solid rules in some no-nonsense language.

  1. Study is okay. Going to panels, being part of on-line communities, and other ways of learning the business and how to write is okay. But you REALLY want to learn to write – then write.
  2. Don’t drown yourself in writing-related activity, write.
  3. Read other people’s books to see what to do and what not to do, and then write.
  4. Great creatives like Mozart and Shakespeare didn’t write one masterpiece, they wrote hundreds of pieces of which some were masterpieces, quality emerging out of quantity, so write a lot.
  5. Great inventors like Edison and theorists like Einstein didn’t have just one patent or one theory paper, they had hundreds, producing regularly, therefore write constantly.
  6. It’s okay if you can’t write daily, or a lot at a time, write when you can and as much as you can when you can. Do the writing.

So Sit Down, Shut Up, and Write.

The comment section on the blog also has some good comments too – the URL is .