Category Archives: The F.U.N. Factor

F is for FREEDOM! Love what YOU love, No Regrets, No Excuses

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It’s easy to get discouraged about your writing. Even when you know you’re doing everything in your power to get better. Learn from every book you write. Every book you failed to finished. Every book that wasn’t “The one.” Everyone you’ve met on this path you chose, writers, family on the sidelines, and not let setback and disappointment be the end of you, because it isn’t, but these feelings never go away once you’re published.

But I know that’s hard to really understand when you collect nothing but form letter rejections year after year, I’m the same as some of you who are reading this now, and you’ve been struggling to get published as I am, you know as I do that as much as you need and sincerely want to be positive, keeping yourself motivated and finding fun in the process is not always simple, and that’s why the first step in my F.U.N. factor method is FREEDOM.

Say it aloud. Freedom!

Keep saying that to your heart, it feeds on this word, you resolve needs to hear it, your thinking must NEVER forget this word, a word we can take for granted, when we lose our way in life.

I’m not talking only about freedom to write what we love, and read what we love, if you follow my blog you believe that on some level already, or at least learning to, I also mean freedom to tell yourself the truth, it will hurt, but lying to yourself hurts even more.

After my last meltdown back in February, I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid talking too much about myself, I didn’t start this blog to bore folks with my problems, or to demonize writers I can’t equal, and let my jealousy cloud my thinking more than does now, zero. Okay, 0.5, but I’m not trying to be a saint here, and it’s better than when it was 60%.

But this is a story I must share with you, because it’s something I wish I’d done years ago, and I hope it will help at least one of you get on the path to healing the true writer within you.

Today, I told a wise writer I know that as hard as I try, my query letters sucked, and nothing I did made them good. No matter how I came at them. She gave me some good advice, which I understood in ways I never would’ve a year ago, but that didn’t make my recent attempts any better, even if they weren’t getting worse.

I tried so hard not to tell her off. After all, she’s a busy lady who would gave up time from their busy life to givr me insight. Few people would do this if it’s not mandatory, especially when times are tough for so many in the world right now, suffering far worse than me, and maybe some of you, for all I know, one of them could be reading this now. It’s something I work hard to be mindful of.

But sometimes, despite your intentions, you give into the frustration, and for someone like me, who can not hide their rage and frustration behind  a mask (One of the many reasons I’ll never go into politics or law enforcement) you ruffle people’s feathers more than gain new skills and insight to improving your craft.

She said what she did for my benefit, not to make me feel worse, and I need to remember that she’s been where I am, and she rose above it to achieve her goals, I can do the same.

I need to remind myself that the only way this will end is either figure out my mistakes and plow through them or quit. But I know I’ll never quit, so I move forward, not always in graceful silence, but I do, and if a flaky crybaby guy like me can do it for eight years and counting, anyone can. So long as being a better writer day by day is your goal too.

In those eight years, I studied my craft, stayed up late polishing my manuscripts, did things I loathed because I sucked at them, but needed to learn, and while I’m never going to love writing query letters, trying to craft those letters helped me learn things I needed to know, and even if I don’t understand them now, someday I will.

There is something I do understand now.

I need to be more patient with myself.

This has always been my greatest weakness next to taking criticism poorly. Whether it’s true or not.

It’s better than when I was 5, (Thank God! All those writers who tried to help me would seriously hate me) but it’s still something I have to watch carefully, and there are times when staying silent doesn’t help you learn anything, the trick is knowing what to say, and how to say it approtiately, but everyone slips up sometimes. That’s human and normal, just don’t let it become a habit, trust me, it’ll be a demonic habit to curb the older you get. Not impossible, but hard, even harder than “Mastering” query letters, balancing the business aspects of publishing with what you as a creative person needs and deserves, but if you can do it, or at least not let it stop you, it will only make you stronger, as a writer and a person, for the rest of your life.

I still haven’t gotten there. But I know what holds me back. That’s really half the battle. A doctor can treat a patient if he doesn’t know what’s ailing him. A Realtor can’t find you a house if they don’t know your budget and what you can realistically attain, and maintain.

So it stands to reason a writer can’t know where he’s going wrong if he doesn’t find out, and what he just can’t find on his own, know the right people to ask, and leverage that to see where you’re at or where you need to be to achieve your goals.

So much about writing is subjective, once you get spelling, grammar, punctuation out of the way. This is both great and grueling. Grueling because it’s easier to see what’s WRONG in someone’s writing than what’s RIGHT with it. Yet it’s also a good thing, because what some think is meaningless drivel, others can see the merit where others don’t, otherwise the only books that would ever get sold would all be somewhat the same, and that’s no fun, right?

At the least, remember the following: I have to write what I love, read what I love, and improve what I hate to best champion for what I love, no excuses, no regrets.

Madame Novelist, if you read this, know I heard you loud and clear today.

One day, I will be as strong as you, and when that day comes, I want to share a meal with you, and tell you with my voice, not just my words, “I understand, and I’m a better person for it, thank you for seeing past the pain I harbored, for it was never meant for you, only myself for lacking your patience and even temperament.”

Until then, I toast you, and all writers who read this with these words-

To us, the writers,
Who love what we do, no matter how much fail,
How many times we’re faced hardship,
For that will make our victory all the sweeter,
Because we earned it, and it’s what we love!

Love your overemotional literary rat,
Whose sober in terms of alcohol but hopelessly drunk with passion and persistence,
Taurean

P.S: Check back tomorrow for part two in my F.U.N. factor method. Understanding.

The F.U.N. Factor – How To Make Your Writing and Reading Life Both Productive and Pleasureful!

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Symbiosis.

It’s one of my favorite words I learned as a kid. It speaks to so many aspects of life. Symbiosis is when two separate entires rely on each others strengths to help compensate the weaknesses of one another.

A more personal way to say “Teamwork.”

For example, vegetable gardens not only need water and nutrient rich soil, but sunlight as well. Sunlight, water, and rich soil all play their part in keeping life cycle of plants and trees in balance.

The water cycle is also dependent on the sun. It’s the light and heat from the sun that causes water to evaporate, become clouds, which brings rain, snow, or hailstones  rushing to the ground .In addition to sunlight though, wind speed and climate temperature also play key factors in the water cycle.

As we each walk down our own writer’s path, we may want to achieve similar goals, like daily sharpening of our craft, writing new material on a reasonably consistent basis, getting an agent. Or make our first sale. We achieve these goals in different ways and at different times, usually (But annoyingly) on a longer time frame.

Regardless of how different your road differs from others, many things are a constant to all writers, whether fiction or nonfiction, short vs. long.

We must write, of course,  but we also must read, which is where our love for language starts after we learn our first words through sound as toddlers. Just like Peanut Butter and Chocolate, Bacon and Eggs, and Fish and Chips, Reading and Writing are of equal importance to writers.

But this is also where new writers especially face one of the first big challenges prior to or shortly after either getting an agent or miraculously sold your book by going direct to a publisher, something that’s getting harder to do now versus decades ago.

Sometimes, you may find reading is not the same as it was when you weren’t writing, which for the purposes of this topic, writing with publication being your eventual goal.

Before, you read what you loved and didn’t have to justify or explain it to yourselves, you just appreciated it when a certain story or writer’s style speaks to you and your interests and experiences.

Once we start writing, and want to publish some of that writing, things change a bit. Now you take second looks as books you normally wouldn’t because they’re causing a serious buzz among readers and fellow writers, and winning an award or two only adds fuel to the fire surronding the accolades of a certain book, series, or author.

Some of these books you may like too, others you simply will not, even if it’s in the same genre or type of book you’re trying to write. First, know that it’s OKAY not to like it, or to simply not be good at a book you like reading, I’m sure many writers like books in certain catagories they don’t feel good at or have any interest to write themselves.

Think of how people have gone loony for memoirs this past decade, but that doesn’t mean all the writers who loved memoir, should or frankly want to write their own.

Now you’ll hear many writers who say they don’t have this problem, and I’m seriously glad they don’t, I don’t wish this kind of pain and frustration on anyone, even my worst enemies.

For those of you T.A.A. readers who know or have once felt this pain, or know someone who has, it is REAL, and thankfully, can be healed. For the next week starting today, I’m going to put into practice, a way of making peace with the rivalry issues writers who want to get published and build a writing career always face and how to rise above them.

Readers, it’s time to get the F.U.N. back in READING, not just writing.

I know many published writers, and publishing insiders, tell you not to let the market solely dictate everything you write, or READ for that matter.  At the same time, new writers are also force fed the saying, “Study the market” often more so than, “Show, don’t tell.”

But this isn’t about arguing one over the other, because they are both important, this is really about learning how to write, and read, that doesn’t sacrifice the pleasure for the practical. This is about-

The F.U.N. Method for reading and writing-

F for freedom
U for understanding
N for necessity

Over the next week or so, I will explore each aspect of the what the F.U.N. method is all about and how you can tailor it to fit the kind of writer and reader you are.

Snow or no snow, for all you four seasoners, Spring is coming soon, and it’s time to take back the fun reading and writing gave us, while still pushing yourself toward excellence in your craft one day at a time.

Check back tomorrow for our first stop-

Freedom!

Until then, may the Fantastic Fauna be with you.
Taurean