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A Writer’s Life — is it worth it?

August 8, 2011 in Blogging, Misc, On Writing

Source: http://healthessays.webs.com

It’s been a while since my last post (by my standards).  And no, it’s not because I’ve been sitting around thinking about just how awesome Rise of the Planet of the Apes was (and it was).

Apart from the usual and the unusual errands and chores and busted tyres and rodent extermination, I’ve been busy planning a few things.  With my masters degree in writing almost in hand and another country move in the works (to Asia this time), it’s time to start thinking about the next phase of my working life.  CVs, scans of published works, contacting contacts to make more contacts — I’m doing it all.

Naturally, if I wanted a life of material comfort (though it wouldn’t be much of a ‘life’), I could easily return to the law, but doing so would be against everything I’ve promised myself over the last few years, and to be frank, it makes my bladder shudder just thinking about it.  I had a nightmare the other night where I was back at the old firm and if I hadn’t woken up from the fright I might have embarrassed myself in bed.  Living in a constant state of stress and terror doing something that I can barely tolerate can’t be the answer for the next 30+ years of my life.

No, any career from here must be a career in writing.  I don’t know if it will last or how it will turn out, but if I don’t at least give it a shot I’m going to regret it forever.

The first thing most people say when they hear about someone (such as myself) wanting to write, is that it’s really really hard.  Really hard.  Don’t quit your say job.  Hardships are ahead — financially, socially, emotionally.  Success stories are one in a million (well, I guess it depends on your definition of ‘success’ — is it JK Rowling or a relatively comfortable living?).

But surely it can’t be that bad, or else there won’t be that many writers out there.  My advantage (or at least what I consider to be an advantage) is that I’m not fussy about the kind of work I do, as long as it involves writing (for the smart-arses out there, that excludes contracts and legal advices) and, as the great George W Bush once said, puts food on the family.

I’m quite flexible with the field or the area or the type of writing.  I can write formal, technical, colloquial, serious, comical, satirical or just plain old conversational.  Just looking around online in Sydney, there appear to be quite a few relatively well-paid jobs for someone in my position.  Legal publishing is a pretty decent route to go, or at least as a stepping stone.  Traditional publishing and media jobs are available — not quite as well paid but not as bad as I had expected.

But this time I’m heading to Asia and from what I’ve heard, writers get paid peanuts (sometimes literally).  There are plenty of jobs that require English writing, so the concern is not to find a job, it’s finding the right job.

There are options.  I can try educational publishing and write books which help local children learn English.  I can go into media and work at a newspaper or magazine that publishes in English.  I can try academic writing/editing, helping out local professors polish up their works in English.  I can try technical writing for a company.  I can even try something in government.  None of these pay well by Western standards but at least I have absolutely no problem seeing myself in one of these roles.  And all of them will provide me with much needed experience.

Perhaps supplementing a day job with freelance writing or editing might be feasible (I’m reading up on that), but it’s not easy for newbies without the experience or portfolio to back them up.  I was just looking around online randomly for freelancing opportunities and saw that quite a few people offer $1 for every 500 words!  Can you believe that?  A dollar!

That said, a lot of freelancers I’ve come across love what they do and wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.  I’d like to be able to say that one day.

I think I am prepared mentally for what lies ahead.  I’m confident in my abilities but I know hard work and luck are imperative — though I believe former swimmer Grant Hackett said it best when he said that the harder he worked, the luckier he got.

If any writers out there are reading, please share your story and how you got to where you are today.  Was it worth it?  And any tips, pointers or pearls of wisdom you might be able to bequeath?

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The end is just the beginning

June 15, 2011 in Blogging, Fantasy, Misc, Novel, On Writing, Study

My masters course has finally finished.

With (soon to be) two masters degrees hanging on my walls I have also become a master of avoiding full-time work as well.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be working on no less than three projects — the secret mini-book I’ll be shopping around for publishers or self-publish, continuing my masters novel, and getting my good old fantasy novel back on track.  And yes, looking for that much needed job will be high on the priority list as well.

Strangely, there is no relief after completing this masters degree like my previous degrees.  Perhaps it’s because I actually wanted to study this time instead of doing it out of obligation.  Or perhaps it’s because I now have to put what I have learned over the last 18 months into practice.

It feels a lot more like a beginning than an end.

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Can I dramatise this scene?

June 12, 2011 in Novel, On Writing

Source: mindset.yoursabbatical.com

A few weeks ago we were discussing the use of free indirect discourse in class.  I didn’t even know what it was, even though I had been using it throughout my writings for years.

Free indirect discourse is a way of representing a character’s speech or thoughts using a combination of direct discourse and narratorial commentary.  The simplest example I can think of is instead of writing a whole conversation between two people where you write down every word uttered (followed by ‘he said’ or ‘she said’), you summarise the conversation with narrative (eg, ‘They had a conversation about X’).

It’s used in just about every novel out there, but it’s something I never really thought much about before until I started struggling with my own writing.  Some conversations in my WIP novel(s) didn’t really work or dragged on too long, and probably could have been dispensed with a narrative summary instead of a word by word account.  Conversely, other conversations which I summarised might have worked better if I strung it out more to give the characters more of a voice.

The problem extends beyond just speech for me.  Looking through some of my older drafts, I tended to have a problem of not knowing how to create a scene.  I might not know where to start or where to end a sequence or a series of actions, and it ends up being a long, drawn out, tedious scene where people just do things and talk and do things and talk for an extended period of time.  The pace sags and even if a lot of things are happening it still feels slow and boring.

However, if I just summarise the scenes they end up losing life and take the reader out of the action.

So it’s a delicate balance.  Knowing when to use free indirect discourse and when to summarise scenes and when to write them out in full is a true skill, and a difficult one to master.

The way I look at it now is that I’m a director of a film, and it’s up to me to decide which scenes I want to show, which scenes I want to omit, which parts I want to spell out for audiences and which parts I leave for them to fill in themselves.  Is this scene worthy of being dramatised?  Is the scene capable of creating drama or tension or helps develop a character or reveal something pertinent about the plot?  Is there a point in the reader having to read the entire conversation or know every little thing that a person saw or did in that scene?  Is there a purpose?  If the answers to the questions are yes, then I go ahead and craft the scene in detail.  If the answers are no, then I’ll have to think of an effective way to summarise it.

Either way, it’s not easy!

 

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Is there such a thing as over-editing?

June 9, 2011 in Novel, On Writing, Study

The last week or so I had been desperately trying to get my manuscript into shape (or at least the part of it that I had to prepare for submission).

I had already touched on how difficult it is to edit your own work in a previous post, but what I have realised lately is that there comes a time when you just don’t know whether further editing is beneficial or detrimental to your work anymore!

Of course, I’m not talking about copyediting — what I am referring to is more substantial edits and rewrites.

My supervisor had given me a number of high level suggestions to improve my work, which required a lot of thought, a bit of deletion and more addition.  So I went ahead and tried to implement the suggestions while also attempting to fix the narrative on a sentence by sentence level.  Of course, I was reading everything out (a huge help), though it did give me a sore throat by the end of the day.

Anyway, it got to a point where I had done perhaps 5, 8 or even 10 drafts of individual chapters, and to be honest I couldn’t tell if the newer versions were any better than the older ones.  I was afraid I had deleted quality stuff and added stuff that didn’t improve the story.  Just how do you know, when everything starts to look the same and all versions start blurring into one?

It was something I discussed in class the other day, and as it turned out, fear of over-editing was a common occurrence, even for experienced writers.  The recommendation was to put the work aside to sit for a while, go do something else, take your mind off it, and when you’re ready, come back to it and read it again with fresher eyes.  And if you are game, showing the different versions to friends for comment would also be very helpful.

The most important thing to remember, of course, is to keep track of all your different versions and don’t save or write over them so if an older version is indeed better or there are deletions you want to reinsert you’ll have access to them.

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Dictating a novel?

May 20, 2011 in Misc, Novel, On Writing, Study, Technology

I’ve really been struggling trying to get my novel project into shape the last few days.  When I’m away from the computer I have a million thoughts running through my head, and I feel like I am ready to write the best shit ever.  But as soon as I sit down and start typing, I’ve got nothin’.

The other day, just before heading out, I was taking a shower when I pretty much planned out an entire chapter of my novel in my head, or so I thought.  I was really excited, but I didn’t have time to write anything down because I had to head out immediately.

I was driving when I had an idea.  Using the recording app on my iPad, I started dictating the chapter to my novel that was in my head during the shower.  It was surprisingly effective.  In about 25 minutes, I had more or less dictated the entire chapter.

That night I went home and transcribed it.  It wasn’t great, but at least I got it out of my system and it allowed me to fix it as I went along, almost like editing a rough first draft.

All of this amazed me, considering as a lawyer I never used the dictation systems they had in place because I found it all too hard and awkward.  I also wasn’tMaybe it was just because I didn’t know what to say.

Could this be a new way for me to write?  Has anyone else tried it?

Unfortunately for me, writing first drafts of chapters is no longer my concern anymore.  I now have to actually shape the drafts into good shit, which I have discovered is even harder.  D’oh.

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