I C Summer Blog Tour – “Navigating the Writing Path: From Start to Finish”

I want to give a shout out to the person that invited me onto this tour, Demi Hungerford, who I know through Scribophile.com and is a fellow blogger. You can check out her blog - http://windr0se.wordpress.com/. She doesn't use humor as much as me and, compared to me, she's a very experienced writer who actually knows what she's writing about. Thank you, Demi, for passing this my way. I had a blast answering these questions. 

1. Share how you start your writing project(s). For example, where do you find inspiration? Do you outline? Do you jump right into the writing? Do you do all of your research first?

Honestly, my inspiration could come from anywhere. It could come from an image that just pops into my head, a dream, something that someone says, a small adventure somewhere, a certain feeling I get. But when I get these inspirations, it's kind of like a storm rushing around in your head. Most of the time, I'm not really sure how to organize it. I don't necessarily outline it. I jump into the writing head first and apply first aid after I'm done. But then again, it depends what I plan on writing. I adventure into a lot of genres, some of which I don't get very far into before moving on. If it's romance writing or supernatural writing then I might jump into it but with mystery, I tend to do more outlining before I start writing my first chapter or story. 

2. How do you continue your writing project? i.e. How do you find motivation to write on the non-creative days? Do you keep to a schedule? How do you find the time to write?

Every writer that I know (which, let's be honest, isn't a lot) have time they put aside each day to write, that's why I'm in awe of them and their writings while I'm over here struggling to put together a simple compound sentence. I have a lot of time to write in the summer and no time at all when school starts back up (college is getting in the way of my passions!) but no matter what, I'll always find time to procrastinate. I don't really have a strict schedule because my schedule is sort of everywhere. But I know that as soon as I sit down and force myself to start doing simple writing exercises to warm up, my motivation will kick in and I can start working on the projects that matter. 

3. How do you finish your project? i.e. When do you know the project is complete? Do you have a hard time letting go? Do you tend to start a new project before you finish the last one? 

My personal opinion on finished projects is "A project is never really finished." I know a lot of fellow writers will agree with me when I say that I feel like any project I do can be better or it's not at it's full potential towards the end. It's rather frustrating and enough to drive a sane writer like me into a strait jacket, though if I was insane then maybe I could create masterpieces and actually publish instead of worrying about how the story will come out before I even start it.

4. Include one challenge or additional tip that our collective communities could help with or benefit from. 
The challenge is always getting past the beginning of the story. Because the ball starts rolling and then you realize you have no idea what happens next... or how it'll end. My advice (and it's very common) know the ending of your story and work backwards from there. Don't worry to much on the details until after you write out your story. If you're writing a novel, then don't go back. Keep pushing towards the end and then go back and make all the corrections and changes you want.

Unfortunately, I have no one to pass the torch onto with these questions because I don't know many bloggers or writers. I guess you could say that my network is very small and MIGHT grow in the future. 

Why Do You Write? (A Personal Account)

   Sorry for my late blog, everybody, but I decided that this week was a good week to procrastinate... I mean, I was too busy. Yeah, that's it. This week's blog I figured I would open up to you a little bit.       Understand who I am as a person and help myself get past my low mood level that is keeping me from writing. So I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and remind myself WHY I started writing to begin with and, with your permission, I'd like to take you with me down this lane.

    So sit back, relax, and enjoy a story of a story teller. Maybe if (or when) you're down and can't write, you'll recap to your own reasons to why you write.

   "I was 13 years old and the summer sun started to fade away, leaving behind it's unforgivable southern heat in the month of August. I had just returned from visiting my favorite relatives in New Hampshire and returned to my life as a good son to a single, alcoholic father and straight A student in my Middle School where I was a minority in a violent school.

   Up until that point, I only wrote every now and then. My 7^th grade English Honors teacher from the previous year had made a thing called 'Free Write Friday' where everyone would spend 10 minutes just writing. Anything. Everything. I suppose that was the first time I really put pen to paper and made something come out. Every Friday I would expand on what I wrote the previous week and turn that in. My writing wasn't the best but I received praise for my use of dialogue (when in reality, I didn't really know what I was doing. I was just assuming it was right) and encouraged to continue to write, which I didn't until the following year.

   Anyways, as August dragged on I began to find out that thing's were different from before I went away for the week. My Dad was always the short tempered type but I found that it was getting worse. Not in the sense of him, but in the sense that I took more of a stance against his temper which, in turn, made arguments and a very hostile trailer to live in. At the time, I began to feel like no one really cared about what was going on so I didn't really talk much about it, but I needed an outlet so I started to write again. I didn't focus on short stories until I was in Junior year of High School, but I did write poems. Countless poems. Unrequited love and 'sorrowful' poems that helped me vent the complex emotions that I couldn't really verbally express.

 

  I started writing my short stories when I realized that poems were not really doing it for me, anymore. I wanted to expand and become better as a writer. I didn't really care before then, I just wrote for the expression and not for the images or metaphor or how it read, as long as it was out there. But now I wanted to grow as a writer so that readers would read my stories or poems and enjoy it instead of suffering and dragging their way through my writings. So I started to write and I started to revise and edit. I wanted to tell my story but in a way that made it readable. It would help me express all my emotions and pain while becoming a decent enough writer to the point where I might be able to publish and get my story out there in the world.

   I still work and strive to become a better writer and I have a very long road to go before I feel my writings are considered great."

   So that's my writing story. It's why I started writing and why I continue to write. So what's your story? Why did you start writing? What keeps driving you to write that next sentence or paragraph? Let me know! Or simply write it down for yourself so that you can keep yourself motivated and know why you keep doing what you do!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out my blog out every Tuesday for a new blog on writing tips, advice, stories, and so on!!!

WWMCD? What would my character do?

Conflicted, yet very driven main character? Check.

A taste of his past? Check.

A taste of personality? Check. 

Well now what? That's enough for the reader and a story, but is it enough for you as a writer trying to make the best story you can?

Character development is always hard and very tricky. Everything needs to make sense. Take me, for example. I am who I am because of events throughout my life. Pieces of

experiences have formed me to be who I am. So why is your character any different? That's why it's tricky. Creating a back story and whole history that the reader probably won't even know may sound like busy work but it's for your benefit, not theirs. Knowing your character on a personal level and not just something your writing, will help you write your story. If you know your character, you'll know the kinds of decisions they'll make with the different situations you'll put them in; otherwise, it'll be all over the place and won't make much sense to the reader.

1) Write a short story. I know a lot of people who want to write an amazing short story or novel and want expert advice (which I am certainly not certified to give) but writing a short story about just your character will help you understand. For your eyes only, if you will. Write about something that happened to them as kids that helped form who they are. Or a challenge they overcame to get where they are. Anything to give you a slight insight into the mind of the person you're creating. What's the harm? I'm attempting it and all I need is an idea for a novel to put him in. 

I said I was attempting it and I meant it. I don't want to give advice and not follow it. I'm writing a fantasy story about a young magician who gets caught in a war between good and evil. Anyways, I wrote a short story about when he was a kid and a traumatic event happened to him. I looked at how he felt, how it changed him, if it was the one thing that motivated him to do better. I was forced to get into the mind of my character. 

2) Of course, this isn't the only way to form your character. I've encountered many 'character sheets' that ask IN-DEPTH questions about your character. By 'In-Depth' I mean I had trouble answering or even improvising answers on the spot. The link I'm going to post is going to lead you to the National Novel Month Writing website forum's. It's not the forum I'm directing you to, it's the first response under the initial post. The response is a Character Sheet that someone posted and it asks a ridiculous amounts of questions about your character and, honestly, you won't even add most of it to your story. It's for you. The more you know and understand about your character, or characters, the better your story will be (depending on plot, but that's for another day).

Here's the link to the Character Questions and Sheets -----> National Novel Writing Month Character Sheet Forum

3) Another great, and a very fun and entertaining, way is to act it out. Walk, talk, and act how you want your character to act like. It makes it look at your character's personality. Is your character shy or one of those people that stands tall and asserts authority?  Act it out! Focus on how you talk and walk as the character and if you're like me, you're going to have a hard time remembering for when you do write it in the story, so take notes... even video yourself doing it. I actually video taped myself escaping from a chair that I was duct taped to to see how much time it took and how I did it so I could help my character do it. Needless to say, I had to keep doing it to make it more difficult.

So, to review, character sheets that ask a lot of questions that'll give you a headache, acting like Tom Cruise (without the crazy) or Jennifer Lawrence (for the ladies), and writing a story about your character FOR your story will help you in your journey to make your character (and, hopefully, your story) better!

Write On!

-Ian Faraway

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out my blog out every Tuesday for a new blog on writing tips, advice, stories, and so on!!!