Making Good Art and the Fear of the Fraud Police

From this...

I have a growing and slightly inappropriate obsession with a married couple. I knew him first, and met her through him before I knew that they were properly serious. I follow her on twitter, him on facebook. For some reason I feel the need to keep these separate. Thanks to them, and a few other people in my life I'm thinking and doing more about my writing. I'm writing more often and I'm taking what I do much more seriously. There's a couple of pretty good videos from them at the bottom of the post.

Procrastination or There's No Such Thing as Writer's Block

From @benwhitelaw

Last year I was talking to a newly published author (let's call them NewAuthor) at a book launch dinner, and discussed with them my theory on the non-existence of writer's block. Later I found out from a friend who had also been talking to NewAuthor that they had also had a conversation about writer's block, except it had been NewAuthor telling my journalist friend (or Journo) that they were suffering badly from this thing I had insisted doesn't exist, and had moved countries in an attempt to unblock. After hearing that from Journo my first reactions were to feel guilty and tactless. I'd like to blame it on the wine with dinner, but the truth is I'm incredibly opinionated, and rarely think at the time about how my opinions will be received by others. That's normally left until something like this happens, and then I feel guilty. I've been thinking about NewAuthor and our conversation that night quite a lot this week, as I struggle with my own writing.

Marla's Back!

A few of you may know that I'm a big Marla Mason fan and I'm very pleased to say that the next in this series of novels by T. A. Pratt featuring the badass sorcerer is going ahead. I came across the first Marla Mason novel Blood Engines, through a legitimate free copy on SCRIBD sponsored by the publisher, and haven't been able to get enough since. The artwork for the covers is awesome and I really love the way Pratt develops his characters. Since having the series dropped by Random House after the Spell Games cliffhanger, Pratt continued the series through reader donations and prize incentives. The next in the series is Grim Tides and will be the third novel Pratt has funded this way. If you're interested you can even try before you buy with a bunch of free stories, including the Grim Tides prequel 'Shark's Teeth'.This series is well worth a read, especially if you like your fantasy urban, and your witches to kick ass. I will be donating this time again (as soon as I get paid) and you can do that here. Pratt gives away prizes of signed books and other delights as well, and you can see my stash from Broken Mirrors here.

 
For more sartorial witt from the wonderfully sarcastic Marla, check out her twitter and keep an eye on http://www.timpratt.org/ for more upates.

Advice



Source



Watching the TV Book Club the other day (yes I will pretty much watch anything with 'book' in the title) I saw an interview with 'the Grandmother of Chick Lit' Jackie Collins. Aside from that absurd title for the bestselling author, one of the things which bugged me came from Ms. Collins herself. She trotted out that old 'write what you know' cliche. This is one of my pet peaves when authors are talking about their work; it is one of those empty phrases that does little more than fill time while they can think of a better answer. Yes, I get that it doesn't mean 'only write that which you have direct experience of' and more 'draw on your life experience to enhance the quality of your writing'. I would, however, prefer to hear that stated plainly with perhaps some advice on how that particular author makes their life experience work for them in their writing. Do they draw on people they know to create characters? Do they extensivley 'people watch' to see varieties of expression and movement? Do they research extensivley, plan meticulosly, sit down and write from the top of their heads? Do their characters come to them fully formed, or do they build them up during the writing process?

 

Of course there's no way that all that information will fit into the time it takes to churn out that stock phrase, but that is because to do more than spit out cliches leads to thinking about and engaging with the writing process.

 

That's my two cents (or pence I suppose, but the invasion of Americaisms is another post for different day). What I really started this post for, before Jackie Collins distracted me, was that I'm thinking, perhaps, maybe of taking part in NaNoWriMo this year. GULP.

 

I won't be able to make a decision on this properly until after my End of Year Review. If that goes badly (please God don't let it go badly) then I'll have to spend the time trying to fix that. Hovever, I have put writing The Novel off until I get on better with the thesis and if that's going well and I get to take the extra class I want top take for the new semester, then I should be able to devote some time to getting the creative stuff up and running.

 

So, over to you. Have you devoted the penultimate month of the year to NaNoWriMo before? Was it worth it? Were you more or less motivated? And did you reach the magic 50,000?