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Don Punchatz and Respecting Your Work |
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Written by Rhonda
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Wednesday, 11 November 2009 17:22 |
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Last weekend my husband and I attended the memorial "Celebration" for iconic artist, Don Ivan Punchatz. I'd never had the opportunity to meet Don Punchatz even though he lived not far from us. My husband had met him once or twice and was talking about getting him to come to FenCon. However, on October 22, 2009, Don Punchatz passed away taking a major artist influence out of the world. Don Punchatz was also much more than a legendary artist in both science fiction and mainstream art worlds. That was very clear from the stories told at the memorial from students and colleagues. Don was a teacher. He passed on his knowledge both on the university level by teaching at Texas Christian University (TCU) and with Sketchbook Studios. He taught artists more than craft. He taught them to respect their work. One artist told the story of taking paper out of the trash and doodling on it. Don scolded him for that. Not that using what's at hand is wrong, but telling the artist to have more respect for his work. If the artist doesn't respect the work how will anyone else? It's a lesson writers can also take away. I'm the first one to say I've scribbled notes on whatever was at hand - and there's nothing wrong with that - as long as you respect your work. I take that to mean take the effort seriously. It should never be "silly scribbling" or anything remotely derogatory. Respecting your work also means making the effort to follow the rules - including submission guidelines and acting professional. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should think our work is the most brilliant thing ever written. But we, as writers and artists, shouldn't do the "this old thing? it's nothing" bit about our work. Even if we're "hobby" writers or professionals, we need to value our writing, our art, and our skills in order for others to see the value in the work and the time it takes to create it. If we treat what we do seriously, then others will too - including family members, friends, and even editors. Who knows where that will lead? I. for one, can't wait to find out. Don Punchatz will be missed by many, including me - who never got to know him first hand. He left behind an amazing legacy. We should all strive to leave behind a "footprint" like Don did. He passed on everything he knew to those who'd come after. He trained, supported, encouraged, and gave back beyond any call of duty, and even in passing, he still managed to teach a lesson. Let us all go forward, respecting our work and sharing our knowledge.
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Written by Rhonda
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Thursday, 29 October 2009 13:15 |
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Computers make our lives both easier and harder when it comes to writing. Easier because you can fix most mistakes before anyone sees them without having to retype entire pages because you forgot a comma or typed "teh" instead of "the". They're harder with all the things that can distract you while you're trying to write - like oh, solitaire, the Internet, and major system upgrades. On Tuesday we upgraded my laptop from Vista to Windows 7. Which meant yesterday was my first attempt at figuring Windows 7 out, and I totally forgot to write this post. I remembered about the time I went to bed last night. So now, I'm rambling while my morning coffee kicks in. Lucky you. Welcome to a writer's life, and as I continued to blank on a topic, I scanned Twitter. Thank you Jane Espenson and Shannon Butcher. You guys are responsible for what comes next. Over the last couple of days I've "tweeted" back and forth with Shannon K. Butcher, paranormal and suspense romance writer. She's a beautiful and talented woman - please buy her books - and very, very funny. We got to "tweeting" about the #IDONTWANNAS. Or in "human" speak the constant state of "I Don't Wanna" which either comes from full time writers getting distracted by life, computer upgrades, etc when they "should be writing". Or for those of us who still have Day Jobs - the getting through that job to do what we really want to do - write fiction. Both of these leads to the #itdoesntmatterwhatyouwantjustdoit (It doesn't matter what you want just do it). Which is what writers do. We DO IT. We apply the butt to the chair and we do it. With all the weirdness and distractions lately, I'm prouder than I should be that I've hit my 250-500 word a day commitment every weekday since I started on the 19th. But I made the commitment here, publicly, and I'm doing my best to stick with it. I'm 10 days Word Count Positive. 8-) And I can guarantee not all those words are good ones (I am currently on a boat load of sinus medication - they may be fun words, but not necessarily good words), but I'm doing it. Which is the key. The most amazing and talented, Jane Espenson, put it in the proverbial nutshell very early this morning - also on Twitter when she posted, "Remember. No one is born a good writer. Babies can't write." Dude. Seriously. That's a simple yet bombshell of both truth and perspective. Babies can't write. We all have to learn. We all have to grow into being good writers. We all continue to grow into good writers and then better writers - or we should. How do you grow into a good writer? #itdoesntmatterwhatyouwantjustdoit. That's how. It doesn't matter what you want to do. If you want to be a writer, you have to write. You have to commit to what works for you - 250 words a day, NaNoMo, something. Commit. Do it. Keep it up. Read the authors you like (I recommend Shannon K. Butcher). Watch the TV you like and pay attention to the good TV writers (I recommend Jane Espenson). Find and follow your favorite people on Twitter or Facebook and see what they have to say along the way - and if you want to follow ME, I'm on Twitter and Facebook - just let me know on Facebook how you found me. Now… beat the #idontwannas. Go. Write. Then come tell me about it.
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Written by Rhonda
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Tuesday, 03 November 2009 23:00 |
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It's weird how something will come to you out of the blue. Thank goodness it happens quite a bit with this column/article sequence/whatever it is. I had to take a typing test this week. I remember taking one several years ago and typing about 60 words a minute. I didn't do as well this time. It's not that I can't type faster. I can. I often do. I can "justify" this by it being a weird system; I wasn't expecting to take a test; test pressure. Whatever. Or I can say that because it was a job-related typing test on a computer, there was a choice. Be fast or be accurate. Especially since (duh) the testing material was more difficult to type than the warm up. Of course the ideal is to be both fast and accurate. But sometimes that's not possible, like November being NaNoMo. The point of NaNoMo is to be fast. Get 50 thousand words on "paper" in 30 days or less. They don't have to be good, they just have to be there - in bulk. And lately, I've been talking about my 250-words-a-day challenge - which is more about "accuracy" in a sense. It's not a perfect metaphor, but work with me. The idea of the smaller word count is to hopefully end up the year with publishable words, not just…words. Now, there's nothing wrong with either approach. Just like with the typing test there's nothing wrong with either approach. Both can be beneficial, and the ideal is to be both. But we can't all be J. Michael Straczynski or Joss Whedon. But that's what I, personally aspire to. I aspire to be what J. Michael Straczynski did. He has said his goal was to be better than anyone faster and faster than anyone better. There is a middle ground. To survive in this industry, you do have to be able to produce in a timely manner - or at least more than one book every 10 years, or even every 5 years. But you also don't have to be James Patterson who signed a deal to write 17 books in 3 years. You have to make the choice of what kind of writer you're going to be. In this business - this art - you have to figure out what works for you. Personally, I go for fast enough to be faster than a lot but not so hung up on perfection that I never get anywhere. If you keep at it steadily, when something comes up like an anthology you forgot about, you can put on the extra burst of speed when you need to. Find your own pace and stick with it. You won't be sorry.
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Slow and Steady Wins the Race |
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Written by Rhonda
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Wednesday, 21 October 2009 13:33 |
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"Slow and Steady". Wow, with NaNoMo coming up, that sounds contradictory to what a lot of people are saying. Now, for those catching up - NaNoMo is the shortened version of National Novel Writing month. The purpose behind NaNoMo is to get people motivated to write that novel that everyone means to write "one day". November makes it "that day". It's intended to get people to get words on paper. To get over the fear of writing crap. And to set a goal. As a motivational tool, I can see that. As a practice, I'm finding myself agreeing more with Jennifer Blanchard over on Procrastinating Writers. She wrote in July her argument against NaNoMo as she was partnering with Holly Lisle in a different idea. Which is writing smaller word counts on a consistent basis. This is backed up by anecdotal evidence of Ernest Hemmingway which I found on Evelyn Alfred's blog. Their idea - write 250 to 500 words 5 days a week. Here's the argument. NaNoMo - though awesome and inspiring - does get you over the "okay to write crap" barrier. When you're doing that many words a day, you have to be able to do that. However, by working that fast - unless you're used to it or under deadline - will not produce 1) a full-length novel - unless you're writing Young Adult, or 2) give you a publishable manuscript. NaNoMo is like a lot of diet programs - really good at getting your weight OFF but doesn't teach your to KEEP it off. If you have a project, great - use NaNoMo to jumpstart your writing "metabolism". However, for long-term goals… I agree with the smaller, steadier word counts. Writing is also like a marathon. You have to start small and work your way up. So starting with writing 250 to 500 words a day makes the first steps of that long-haul run novel project more manageable. I talked to a good friend last week about this. She has all these snippets and plot bunnies in her brain. She doesn't know if they're one novel or several or short stories, and NaNoMo daunts her. So I mentioned starting out writing 250 words a day. Get the scenes and snippets out of her head and on paper - then see which ones can be strung together. Her first reaction, "I can do that!" Of course you can. 250 words is a traditional typed page. And it's not daunting. What writing like this does is get you in a habit. It's turning the water up under the pot of frogs. Before you know it, you're writing something every day. If you commit to 5 days a week - you have two days a week to "blow". You can fall off the wagon for two days a week and still not mess up your program. It also gives you a "weekend" to relax and let your brain recharge. What you accomplish is a full-novel amount of words in a year. Then, as you get more comfortable with the process, you'll find you do more words because your scene or thought isn't finished, and you don't want to stop. It lets you train yourself to be consistent and constant. And you'll probably find the pressure off to do a LOT quickly. That’s what editors and deadlines are for. I've mentioned that I've been looking to be more consistent with my own writing. Even established authors stumble with this. As of Monday, I committed to myself to write 250 NEW words - new fiction words - a day. I've not messed that up yet - but I'm only three days in. 8-) That gives me not only fresh material, but time to spend editing, doing blogs, writing these articles (yes, I still have 250 words to do after this today). But it's something I can do at lunch or over morning coffee, or something, and then I have this great sense of accomplishment. Will you join me? Let's make NaNoMo not just about doing a novel in a month, but the start to new habits. Then we, too, can take it slow and steady and win the race.
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