At certain points in my life I tend to take long breaks from writing as it generally takes a good deal of time for me to get into the mood to pen something, anything, after a long day of work. I understand how you feel: the whole week seems to be filled with work; after your day job maybe you volunteer, go to classes or even have siblings or children to take care of. These responsibilities, even if minor, add up during the course of the week and you are left with, at best, mere hours a week to dedicate to hobbies. What I find unfortunate is serious writing takes effort. You must be in a creative state of mind, relaxed and focused all at the same time. For some of us this zen-like state is nearly impossible to get to late at night when all you want to do is go to sleep an hour early.
I have personally solved this problem in two steps. The first step is to always carry around something to write with. For me most of my creative ideas come when I least expect it. I may be zoning out on the train ride into the city, listening to a friend ramble on about their day during lunch, or even waking up in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea for a chapter or short story. The point is to always be able to jot these ideas down when they are fresh on your mind, in their most lucid form, because attempting to recall them later will be much harder than you may think! I suggest a cheap pocket-sized moleskin notebook that is available from Amazon or your local Barnes and Nobles store for under ten dollars. These notebooks tend to last being jostled around inside a jacket pocket, purse or sat on when in the back of your pants pocket.
The second suggestion I could give is to make a rule about writing. Every Wednesday, for example, add an appointment or notification on your phone to remind you to sit down and write for two hours. Be sure to add a reminder two hours before your writing period so that you can finish dinner, reading or studying. A notebook (or more likely, a computer) should be close at hand on this particular day, so be sure to choose a day when you are for sure most likely to be home from your other engagements.
A half hour before you are to write make sure you get yourself in the mood. Put in some relaxing music, distance yourself from any distractions like other people, television or instant messenger applications, and the most important piece to the equation – review the notes that you have been taking in your handy-dandy notebook. If they are related to a story that you are already working on be sure to refresh yourself with the previous couple of pages that you have written. Don’t get hung up on any spelling or grammar mistakes that you may have made, this is not the time to edit, but focus on the structure and layout of the story. A good editor will always go through your piece with a fine-toothed comb.
Remember that the most important thing is to enjoy what you are writing. Even though it helps to make writing a timed event, do not turn it into a chore, because it will that much harder to sit down at your computer desk and type away for hours. Get lost in what you are working on and enjoy the world that you are crafting. If you feel yourself getting bored with the story, do not be afraid to work on another chapter or entirely different story. Sometimes it helps to come back to a piece later to refine it.
I was reading a blog post today about how you’ll never become a full-time writer and even though I disagree, I find myself not enjoying the idea of needing to force myself to write hours on end in order to make a paycheck. For me writing is a hobby, it is something that I enjoy as it gives me a creative outlet, but I far more enjoy writing software as a day job. As the post points out many bloggers are “corporate suits” by day and “smartass bloggers” by night. Is this really a bad thing?
Sure you may have a small portion of yourself that wishes you could ditch your corporate job, sit at home all day and write opinion pieces for an online publication, but would you really be happy? For some of you that answer is a resounding yes, but for myself, the only way that I seem myself being able to be a full-time writer is if it were to be a novelist. As a blogger you are forced to have a shtick, either it being able to come up with witty one-liners for each and every post, be a complete and utter asshole to the point where people laugh at the obsurd shit that you put out, or be able to write a complete story that flows beautifully.
I am not a person that is consistant at any of those to be even considered an adequate candidate as a professional blogger. Of course I cannot say that I have ever tried doing so, but I think if that were my job I would end up falling back on writing software because that’s what I enjoy to do. For some people blogging (and writing in general) is a dream that may eventually become more than a hobby, but for others, it is something that we enjoy in addition to our daily work grind. If it becomes more than that then we may decide to go with the flow, because really, that is all we can ever do anyway, right?
In a lame attempt to actually promote my my lifelong dream of a project I have decided to write a few blog posts on how to become a better writer. I am not going to claim that I am an authority on writing, but somes kills that I have acquired over a very long career in amateur writing. As I go along I may incorporate my thoughts on some other blog posts as I completely believe in taking advice from people who are more informed on a particular subject matter than I am.
A Google search regarding reading and writing will bring up millions of search results that explain exactly what I am about to summarize – the more that you read the better of a writer you will become. The two cannot be separated from each other. A blog post on writetodone.com gives some suggestions on how to use reading to improve your writing skills. The first is quite obvious – develop a habit of reading and make sure to stick to it. If you are like me, a public transportation commuter, pick up the daily newspaper and read through all the articles that you can on your trip. If you happen to stroll by the cheap novels go find one that interests you and make a habit of reading a few chapters each day while on your subway grind.
The more that you read the more you will want to read, but make sure to choose something that interests you. One particular suggestion that is made in the aforementioned blog post is that you should read great writers. While I absolutely agree with this statement I do not believe it is a prerequisite to building a reading habit to foster a writing desire. Because I have been a reader most of my life there is rarely a book that I won’t at least attempt to read, but I have found that most of the “classics” bore me. I am not a person that is drawn to reading romance, drama or anything in between. I often find myself picking up young adult novels because of the interesting story aspect. When you are first embarking on this journey read what you believe will keep you interested. If you happen to stroll across some great novels at the book store, give them a whirl, you can often find them for about five dollars at Barnes and Nobles.
After spending a couple of months becoming a frequency reader you’ll quickly notice that your comprehension, vocabulary and reading speed have all dramatically improved. The fact of the matter is the more words that you take in the more you are likely to recall when you are writing. Please remember that Words Are Power. If you have a few minutes watch this short YouTube video with Morgan Freeman. When you are reading keep your mind open because inspiration for writing may come from the words in front of you as well as the life you’re walking to everyday.
If you want to help me out with my writing movement, whenever you write a blog post, story or newspaper article be sure to reference the #iamwriter, #iampoet and #iamreader hash tags on Twitter. The more writers, readers and poets we can inspire the better off the world will be.
I have been using WordPress for many years now. I firmly believe that there is no better software available, free or paid, for rolling your own blog. The guys over at Automattic are an amazing bunch of people for giving away free software that might otherwise cost thousands of dollars. But with all of that said I feel that there is a big gap that the blogging community must hurdle in order to become, well, more conjoined. When I am bored I tend to click around the Internet, read some blog posts, and occasionally comment on the ones that I feel are worthy. I have found that there is some great great commenting software out there that allows tracking of comments from site to site, but the same can’t be said for blogging.
Now, I may have missed the memo, but what blogging really needs is a centralized hub where I can easily search, comment and publicize the authors that I think are making strides in the vast online writing community that is the blogosphere. Up until this point I have had to keep a list of bookmarks for the blogs that I want to frequent, but why is that? Just as I am able to log on to Digg.com and given stories that I would like to read, I should be handled blog articles that are automatically aggregated utilizing the XML-RPC ping protocol that WordPress has seemingly kept infamous. I believe that the WordPress.com community is a step in the right direction when it comes to a blog community, but I do not want to be limited to having to open a blog on their host in order to be listed there. Part of the reason I love WordPress (the software) is that I like the freedom I am given when I am able to run my own host.
Well, those are just some thoughts of mine. I am sure that someone, somewhere, has been thinking the same thing that I have and is probably already hard at work on the next big thing when it comes to blogging communities. I just have not found anything that comes close to my vision of what the ideal would be. Someone surprise me.
The Twitter service is agnostic to your special characters that we use as annotations to #topics and @people. The community came up with these “features” as a way to facilitate conversation on a service that was meant to broadcast our daily meanderings. One of the main reasons why Twitter took off was its easy to use, well documented, and public API that can be used to literally build a client out of any computer language that knew how to handle HTTP requests. The service boomed, but the problem is that Twitter’s gold standard client was now left in the dust because all of these brand new kids on the block were offering features that the community invented.
Twitter web client as of November 2009
So let’s fast forward to the current day. The Twitter web client now incorporates almost every single feature that you can find inside of a third-party client. Any username that is prefixed with an @ symbol is properly highlighted and linked, and #hashtags that convey an idea (subject matter about the tweet) are highlighted as well. These subjects, when clicked, take you to the Twitter search feature which show you all the tweets “related” to that subject matter.
Now obviously it is not perfect. If you take a look at the daily trending topics people will append tags to the end of their promotional tweets to get to the top of the search list. We have brought ourselves back into the days of high school where everyone wants to be the popular kid of the block, wearing the latest clothes, and listening to the new music.
The problem that Twitter is facing is that they are competing against themselves. Because they are allowing outside clients to literally do nearly anything they want their “market share” is being chewed up by application authors. Will Twitter be able to survive? Well, that’s precisely why we are seeing the addition of Twitter Lists and the infamous Retweet features to the web client. These are ways that Twitter is attempting to draw back people to using the web service. A couple of months ago Twitter even hired an ex-Google web designer to spruce of their web interface, and let me tell you something, it looks a hell of a lot better now!
While the community still invents clients and services around Twitter they need to figure out a way to make some cash. Eventually the guys with the money are going to start pounding on the tables wanting a pay out. I enjoy the interaction that I am able to get by using Twitter, but the business side of me keeps asking How are they going to make money? Every time that I look at Facebook I keep thinking that eventually my Facebook information kludge is going to eventually be rebranded to Twitter when they dump a boatload of cash on the venture capitalists laps. Although the way that the Internet works you’ll see a clone in the works as soon as news of that merger hits the pipes.
There are times that I wish I could be addicted to something. While hanging out with the local chumps I hear the war stories of people that were an addict. There is nothing better than listening to someone recount an experience that led them through the streets of Philadelphia on a path of destruction to find that last little shit who wants to sell him some crack.
Some of the world’s fucked-up people are the people that interest me. If you are crazy and hear voices in your head I want to know who they are. Do they sound like Burt Reynolds or Sean Connery? I think it would absolutely amazing to have the ominous voice of Charlie Manson speaking to me at totally irrelevant times. How many people can say that a serial killer talks to them while they are commuting to work?
I don’t care who you are. You cannot tell me that you have not at least once thought about what it would be to labeled clinically insane. I’m not talking about slit-my-wrists-emo insane; I mean the people that walk through the halls of Ancora eating crayons and smearing Elmer’s glue on their tongue. These are the type of people that decide to mold their feces in the shape of the Pope, or weave a blanket out of the hair that they had shed.
I am a firm believer that half of these people lie about these craziness. It would be nice to be delusional and hear the voice of a raving madman for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately I am not the type of person to go through a drug induced stupor in order to hear a second or third voice in my head whisper sweet-nothings into my consciousness.
Obviously a vast majority of these people are crazy. But what about the people that aren’t? Maybe Elvis is really speaking to that a random lunatic and all he wants is another peanut-butter and fried banana sandwich. Who knows?
Oh what I would give to be crazy for a couple of hours. It might answer so many questions in my life.
When living in an apartment it has generally been an acceptable practice to take out the garbage on time, pay the electric and gas bills on time, and generally be a good neighbor to all of your fellow homosapiens. Another general practice is to make sure that the children that you have bore both in and out of wedlock are properly disciplined.
Now, back when I was a kid this meant listening to your mother, playing nicely with your siblings and doing what you were told. Back when I was a kid, if you did not do what you were told, Papa would come home and show you the wrath of God which usually resulted in you thinking twice the next time you decided to defy an order. If you were stupid enough to do the same thing more than twice then it was usually time to stop using the belt and starting using more inanimate objects: the door, the wall, a lawn chair.
When I moved into my new apartment in August, despite all of the usual expectations of an apartment in Newark, it was actually a rather pleasant experience. I had escaped the wrath of Residence Life deciding to turn on the air conditioning about the three weeks too late and a maintenance request taking longer than the trip to candy mountain to be serviced. The benefits most definitely outweighed the costs (and trust me, Residence Life despite all of their falters during my tenure there did not drop the ball when it came to that $750 cancellation fee).
That was until I found out there were two inexperienced parents living upstairs who decided to have children a little too early in their “relationship” (in quotes because I do not fully understand the situation regarding Mommy and Daddy). This meant that while I was watching a football game I had the second floor menaces screaming at the top of their lungs and playing their own game of “Who could be the loudest during the Giant’s football game?”
I am a firm supporter of parents having the ability to beat their children. The recent teachings about being a good “parent” and using “positive” reinforcement helps the development of children. We are living in an age where parents are scared to discipline their student because some gung-ho grammar school teacher will report them to child services.
I envision a future where we will begin outsourcing he beatings of our children to a paid service so that the liabilities can be transferred via ink on a paper. Because we are living in a world where we do not like to be responsible for our actions. But not I, because beating my child is one privilege of parenthood that I am absolutely looking forward to – DYFS, I’ll send you an IOU.