Brain Crack!

This will be my first fiction writing post. For those who don't know, I write fiction. Look over that way at the links for a couple of samples out in the wild --------->

Thanks to Jenny Jo Reinhart (through the one and only Brad Parks) for sharing this on G+. It leads to the most important thing to remember if you want to be a writer, the single piece of advice every writer, teacher, or writing coach gives: write. This should be obvious, but it's the act of writing that makes one a writer. Otherwise, you might be a hip frood with a headfull of awesome, but unless you let that awesome out somehow nobody else will ever see it.

The biggest thing that helps me is socializing my writing life. It's easy to fall into the stereotype of the isolated, solitary writer. Think Thoreau alone in his cabin. Virginia Wolfe in her own room, with lock and key. Hemingway drinking alone because he's threatened to punch out everyone else. Go get the drift. Writing can be solitary. Especially if you have a full-time job and a family and can only write at 4AM when everyone else is in bed (it's 4AM now). So what to do?

One choice is a critiquing group. Not is avoiding the shame of having to face the same people every few weeks without a new work to show a tremendous motivator, but everyone can benefit from an objective eye telling them whether or not they're as awesome as they think. I've had a room full of people not "get" a story in which I really believed, or tell me what was wonderful about something I wasn't sure about. More about those experiences in a later post.

Another experiment I've been tinkering with are "writer hangouts". You can meet other creative types in a coffee shop, a bar, on a rooftop, or through the magic of the internet, chat for a few minutes, then get to work. I tried it the other night on G+ (hosted by the one and only Mary Robinette Kowal) and, while at first other faces flitting too and fro on my screen were a touch distracting, the "ticaticataptaptap" of fingers on keyboards is a great motivator to keep my fingers dancing across they keyboard.

Now, that being said, back to work. After all, none of the stories here in my head are going to write themselves.