Practical Writing Advice

Recently I set up a Scrivener file for blog article writing. I have a page for ideas and a separate folder for every article I start. I’m way ahead of myself. I have weekly articles for months to come. I’ve also written two novels this year, a Sherlock Holmes episode, a few more short stories, and I’m feeling like I could keep going like this forever. 

It’s funny because when I first started out - a few decades ago - I couldn’t sit still for long. Literally, youthful adrenalin prevented me from being immobile. I used to perch and write for short periods, literally five or ten minutes, then get up and pace around the room, burning off excess energy, waiting for the next wave of inspiration to hit. A totally exhausting process to be sure - and really not a very productive way to work. But I had to do it that way or I’d do nothing.

Growing up I also wrote in short spurts, literally five minutes here and there because I felt embarrassed and didn’t want my family to know I kept diaries, wrote short stories based on real life events, and recorded all my most personal thoughts. I used codes so they wouldn’t know what I’d written. I wrote using tiny words and sentences that curled around corners so people would find it difficult to know what I’d written. I guess I thought of my writing as secret and somehow perhaps shameful.

I’ll admit I did write a lot about what I considered odd behavior - but this was basically what everyone else considered normal. Later I realized I was, indeed, the odd one.

At school, I could never finish a writing exercise. My teachers would ask us to compose a story and I’d feverishly write 20 or 30 pages and hand that in. I would then have to apologize that my homework was not finished, that I had run out of time. My English teachers took note and often advised me to write as a career. Some gave me advice and guidance for which I’m grateful to this day.

I always loved writing. It made me feel good.

But I also loved music. Writing songs was the same for me. I used to write a dozen songs in one evening and then none for a year. I found writing songs exhausting too. The bands I was in would play these songs until we were sick of them but I would only write in short bursts - usually when I was alone for an evening or a day, because I didn’t want people to see me making up songs.

Again, that sense of shame associated with creation…

But my creativity was shot in those early days. I had no clue how to organize myself and make the best of my talents. Back before the Net, I had no one to compare myself to, no mentors, only my family, who thought I was weird and antisocial. Which I admit I probably was.

These days, it’s hard for me to stop being creative in some way or another. Over the years I’ve trained myself that way. Sitting for long periods is not difficult anymore and I can organize my thoughts as I write. But the best part is that I don’t get mentally buzzed or overexcited by my creativity anymore. Which means it’s not so tiring nor physically demanding.

That was the killer really. I’d get so excited my brain felt like it was about to explode. The opposite of calm progress. Just totally erratic explosions of creative vomit. And a lot of it was awful - but I still believed my every word was divine, awesome, and perfect. I realize now that was because I had so much physically invested in the process. I needed to get older and less precious before I was mature enough to write well.

Some professional authors believe you don’t have anything meaningful to say before you’re forty anyway. They say you need the objectivity that comes with maturity. I don’t agree. I think you can write at any age. And write well if you practice enough.

At various times in my life I’ve got out of the habit of writing consistently and had to retrain my brain. So, here’s the teaching part…

I remember reading Becoming A Writer by a wonderful lady called Dorothea Brande. In her book she suggested, when you’re starting out, writing for short periods every day.

When I was working in London for a - actually I can’t remember now - I used to find a spot outside in Hyde Park during lunch breaks and write silly paragraphs about nothing. When you’re struggling to start it’s not always the writing that is hard, it’s finding things to write about. You need to train your mind to find subjects that are worthy of a few words. Plus, you must learn to write fast, and try not to think of where you’re going. It’s better to be terrible than to write nothing. That’s the philosophy to encourage.

Nothing is sacred. It’s all meaningless, not worth anything, but at least it’s down, on the page.

Other times I used to get up an hour earlier and write tosh: anything, nothing, about my dreams, about my life, anything to trick my brain into thinking that my every thought was brilliant and fascinating. You have to do that. It’s a necessary part of the process.

But what all of this creativity depends on is this: you have to learn to switch off your internal editor when you write. Always know that editing and polishing is for later.

Getting stuff down, no matter how bad, is the only thing that’s important.

At least at first.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy

More About Writing

 

To let you know, I managed to get over the problems I was having with my Heresy novel. I just kept writing out the issues, deleting words and paragraphs that led to the tricky parts in the first place and generally giving over more time to writing new material to get myself back on an even keel.

Short version: I finished the first draft of the novel at just under 90,000 words.

Now I’m taking a short sabbatical from the book so that I can get some distance. I never know what the right amount of time to take but I’m less than a week in and already feel like I’m wasting time, and yes, becoming a waste of space. So I’ve been writing more articles just to keep myself busy and now I’m looking at the next Sherlock story in my Zombie Slayer series, seeing if I can get any further with that.

Based on some pertinent student feedback, I’ve been wondering recently, what does one do when there’s no evidence that your artistic endeavors are worthwhile, successful, or even being noticed?

Now that we have the technology to track the impression our work has on people, it can be a sobering realization that in fact hardly anybody gives two figs about us or what we do.

Sure, the fantasy is that everyone loves us and can’t wait to see our next piece of art. But that’s not really how it works, especially now that the internet is so huge and growing daily. The average artist, writer, musician, content creator, whatever, simply can’t compete, gain a decent foothold - or barely generate casual interest in their creations.

Unless we pay for advertising of course, which is the problem with promotion, and always has been. You can’t break through into people’s consciousness unless you pay.

But what if you can’t afford to buy ads?

Simple.

Stop doing what you do for money and recognition.

Do it only for yourself.

A lot depends on what we regard as “recognition” in the first place. I’ve been an online businessperson for over twenty years and I long ago gave up on the idea of using social media as a way of generating business. All of the pat advice given to anyone starting out simply doesn’t work, except on a limited scale directly proportionate to how much you are willing to spend on the massive media platforms: Google, Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc., etc.

And believe me when I tell you that advertising online is hugely expensive these days.

Your average return on investment is going to be limited, if not negative. Trending on social media is something that only happens to cats and famous people and making easy money from being an Influencer is a fantasy invented by Hollywood.

The only way to make it online is to simply keeping doing what you do for love and hope that eventually people will recognize that what you’re doing is valid and good. That’s how it’s always been, even before the Net. Why do people believe that the Internet somehow gives you an advantage? Wishful thinking, mostly. In reality, the Net is merely a mirror, a reflection, full of all the depth, complexity, and unfairness that plagues the real world.

Fate, luck, and chance play a much bigger role in our success than we like to admit.

Yes, we have to do what we do well, and perhaps work with our target market in mind but it’s literally impossible to know what will hit, stick, and/or become viral.

We have to do “our thing” for love.

For ourselves, first and foremost.

Now I realize I’m not supposed to say these things. As a so-called “guru” I’m supposed to be full of hype, hope, and good news to inspire you and make you feel that everything is going to be okay and you’ll make it if you just keep at it. And I still believe those things. But the pragmatist in me asks: but what about the people this doesn’t work for? What do they do? What is my responsibility toward them?

I want to help. I see it as my destiny to inspire writers and artists to do their best work. And to do it with hope and a sense of their own destiny. But what if that doesn’t work?

The figures are against us. Eight billion people on the planet. We can’t all be on the A-list, nor even the B-list or the C-list. Most of us will have to get by on getting by.

But here’s a curious thought…

Perhaps “getting by” is enough.  

When I started my writing academy online, over twenty years ago, I was lucky. I earned enough to pay off my debts and eventually buy a big old house in the country, where we still live. We’re financially all right though sometimes I want to be as rich and famous as some of my idols, though I really don’t know why. I’m not very comfortable with the idea of fame and great wealth except as a conduit for doing good things for others.

So what do we all want?

A good life shared with those we love, doing the things that bring joy to ourselves and others. Yes, money comes from those things for some but not always. Sometimes people have to work too. At terrible dehumanizing jobs, I know. The world sucks. For many of us.

To be honest I don’t really know the answer but I know it’s probably something to do with looking for The Answer with hope in our hearts while nurturing a positive attitude.

Not as inspiring as you’d like, perhaps, but at least it’s real.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy

The Culprit That Dare Not Speak Its Name

On average the number of people dying each year in Australia has increased by 10 percent since the vaccine roll out. In fact nobody in the land of Oz died of Covid-19 until the vaccine was rolled out. Let’s go further. There is a direct correlation between the mRNA vaccine and excess deaths all over the World.

 

There, I said it.

 

(And why shouldn’t I say it if it’s my truth.)

 

It’s ridiculous that the medical establishment here now wants to investigate why suddenly more people are dying. Absurd because the cause is so blatantly obvious.

 

The vaccine is the “cure” that dare not speak its name.

 

We’re not allowed to speak ill of the vaccine because our rulers invested billions into its development and roll-out. The media are gagged by the government position, which is basically: THOU SHALT NOT QUESTION THE EFFICACY OF THE VACCINE.

 

We’re all part of this Second Deception.

 

The First Deception was that the vaccine was any kind of cure. It wasn’t. In fact they had to change the definition of vaccine to enable them to force mRNA technology into the marketplace - heavily subsidized by the governments who indemnified Big Pharma from liability along with presumably any responsibility for the collateral damage arising from never EVER being able to lay blame at their door.

 

The Third Deception will be the constant rewriting of history whereby the vaccine causes no harm, cures diseases, and we’re all much better off because mRNA technology will create a brighter new future. All of which are lies that we will carry to our deaths, aided and abetted by the media, social and actual, the authorities, and the rest of the self-delusional who inhabit our planet.

 

Honestly, as a species, there’s no hope for us.

 

We’d rather die than admit the truth.

 

There was no pandemic until the vaccine caused one.

 

There I said it again.

 

Apologies to anyone who doesn’t want to hear my truth.

Of course all of the above I could claim is merely my opinion. Remember opinions? Before Covid-19 we were allowed to exercise our right to express ourselves, say whatever we wanted, even stupid things that were false or delusional.

All that has stopped. Now we need disclaimers or we’ll be censored. Scrub that, they don’t even bother with “fact-checking” anymore. You just get scrubbed. Continue to spread your truth and expect your career to be destroyed, your ability to disseminate information curtailed, your voice silenced.

Doesn’t that sound like a fascist-state answer to free speech?

Doesn’t sound very free to me.

Or fair, nor even appropriate.

There’s been a whole lot of changes happening in the world since the vaccine. I would say since Covid-19, but the virus was never the problem. The problem came with the First Deception. Not because that Deception was a particular bad thing but it did prove that one thing was possible…

It was possible to deceive the entire population of the world using media censorship and, for good measure, obfuscation of the enemy. It’s a totalitarian dream that could only work with the participation of the Internet giants. Get them onside, with monetary or literal coercion, and you can set the stage, continue the lies, and undermine the truth so much that the public doesn’t know what or who to believe anymore.

We live in a Matrix-like cocoon of managed misinformation.

And yes, I know, now I sound crazy. And that proves what I’m saying. When you speak anything like “the truth”, thanks to the inspiring work of all those wonderful three letter acronyms, you always sound crazy these days.

Thanks, guys. Job done.

I’m officially a funny farmer because I have the audacity to stand by my opinion.

Of course I do. I have truth - and facts, dammit - on my side.

Weird that, isn’t it?

The misinformation machine is so effective that if you don’t tow the official line, your life may be forever plagued by forces that would silence you and try to make you feel small, irrelevant, and wrong. And by “forces” I mean your job, your school, your bank, your doctor, any kind of authority, even your neighbors and friends.

But since when do we need to be silenced for allegedly having the wrong opinion?

Apparently all the time now. Social media used to be a fun place to express outrageous indignation and show a healthy disrespect for authority. That was until the government realized it was a powerful tool that could get them voted in and out of power.

So they threatened to legislate social media and search engines out of existence unless they too, towed the official line - that is, to help spread the lies required by governments to rule effectively.

The whole world is now a 1984 blueprint where truth and facts are distorted to follow the official narrative, even when that story is patently - and provably - absurd.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter this new reality.

We’re doomed until we wake up and make a definitive change for the better.

And please, we must stop lying to ourselves about the vaccine!

On Friday the Thirteenth and Doing Research

They say it’s a bad time to do anything today because it’s Friday the thirteenth.

On this very date in 1307, King Philip of France rounded up the Knight’s Templar in an attempt to steal their money and break up their power base by making them look like Satan worshiping sodomites.

Funny, this reminds me of my article from last week. Accuse people of bad things and the sting never quite goes away. Even after 700 years.

Curiously, one of the great mysteries of history is what happened to all the Templar money. King Philip never did get hold of very much and he died about a year later, apparently cursed by the Templar’s head honcho, Jacques de Molay, during his grizzly execution.

Enough general knowledge, this week I promised you (and myself) I would make this article about writing, so I won’t bore you with all the silly (Jason) stuff associated with this date. Instead, let’s talk about research, truth, and its relationship to fiction writing.

People often ask me how much research they should do for their stories.

My first reflex is usually to say: None.

The whole research thing is a trap for writers. When it appears necessary, it’s a delay tactic for people who think that with enough research the writing will get easier. This is never true. If anything, research makes things harder because you have to accommodate veracity when a hearty dose of fiction will usually do just as well.

I remember putting off a writing project for over five years because I was convinced I needed to do more research. More being the operative word because it was Thomas More I thought I needed to know more about! True, I did use some of the information I gleaned from reading his biographies but really not enough to justify five years of my time, endless trips to the library (to research the bubonic plague - this was before the internet) and asking relatives to buy me specific books about Tudor England for birthday and Christmas presents. Waste of time really.

Stephen King was congratulated by many inmates and wardens for his accurate portrayal of prison life in The Green Mile. How much research did he do? You guessed it. None.

The human mind has a way of imagining exactly what the reality must be.
I often look things up as I’m going along these days, just to confirm facts, geographical locations, plane times, that kind of thing. But it’s easy to get obsessed. Really, at the end of the day, how accurate does fiction have to be?

Some authors travel to the destinations in their books, just to get the feel of a place and to know that their descriptions are authentic. But as Hemingway used to say, the better you know a place, the less you need to describe it. Somehow the reader senses you know more but doesn’t expect you to write it all down.

Plus, too much truth and fiction starts to become unbelievable. It’s a strange phenomenon that permeates the literary genre. Truth will get in the way of a good story. Don’t get sucked in to the idea that because it really happened, that will make it believable. Often the opposite is true.  

These days I tend to do research after the first draft of a book, whether fiction or non fiction. When I have a compelling premise in my mind I find that research can ruin a good idea, or at least remove some of the impetus to continue.

Best to get all of your ideas, the flow and the right-brain artistic sweep of the premise down before you mess up your head with all that left-brain fact, filler, and logic.

As I say, research is a delay tactic. It’s dry and feels productive when it’s not. Basically it’s a waste of creative energy. And that’s a sin. Better to write well and make mistakes than to be factual and dull.

Also people ask me, how true does my fiction have to be?

Depends on the genre.

Thrillers tend to need more accurate portrayals of places, weapons, and technology because the readers of these books like it that way. Romances, mysteries, even horror, can gloss over the real world and, to a certain extent, glamorize things beyond recognition. Of course in fantasy, nothing needs to be real, except your belief in it.

Our memory is unreliable. I’ve gone back to places I’ve written about and, because I wasn’t in the same head-space, I see the location differently, and not in a good way.

I enjoy being in that weird fictional reality where everything is bright and significant because that’s the easiest place to write in. Sometimes reality is not very conducive to being artistic. I read this recently: Artists are meant to improve on reality to make our lives - and the lives of our readers - more bearable. Fun even.

Reality is dull, often unpleasant, and not very inspiring.

That’s why we feel sorry for people who don’t read. Because readers are privy to a whole set of worlds inside their heads that are special beyond words.  

Thanks for reading. Let’s hope this article is not cursed with paraskavedekatriaphobia. (That’s fear of Friday the thirteenth.)

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy

Suspicion is Nine-Tenths of the Law

 

The presumption of innocence prior to conviction is enshrined in the law of most Western countries. 

However, for people generally, and the media especially, this is not how justice works in practice. Simply the accusation of a crime is often enough to condemn a person for life and ruin their career. And sometimes that’s the point. In a world where image is everything, it’s far too easy to destroy someone’s credibility and undermine their entire life’s work simply by suggesting they might not be wholly without fault.

This cancel culture we live in is a scourge. We may look back in a few decades and wonder why we ever had the audacity to reject an artist’s work because their private lives did not live up to the impossible standards imposed by bigots and fanatical lobby groups whose stances did not always reflect the views of the compassionate majority.

But rather than bemoan a society that is supremely intolerant of bad decisions and regrettable lapses in judgment, I think we should point out the obvious. That if you’re going to join an arena like entertainment, or become part of any kind of platform that requires respect, perhaps you should be better behaved!

As an artist, don’t try to get away with criminal or suspect activity. Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal would be a good start, and certainly don’t engage in questionable sexual activities and expect never to get found out.

Yep, it’s going to be hard to get the balance right. When you look at politicians and titans of industry you see that they are often made up of questionable sociopaths who thrive on the control and abuse of others. Not all of them, sure, but a sizable number.

Now, Picasso may not have been a model human being - but who can deny his talent?

At the extreme, a creepy TV presenter like Jimmy Saville might have been one of the worst child molesters of all time but why on Earth did he think he could get away with it - and for so long? Same with Harvey Weinstein. Or Jeffrey Epstein. When you read about what these people got up to you think they must be either crazy, self-delusional, or so wanton as not to care.

And at this stage, I’m not saying Russell Brand is innocent or guilty. Just that we should perhaps reserve judgment until it’s proven either way.

So many good actors like Kevin Spacey, Johnny Depp, and Geoffrey Rush have been destroyed by spurious allegations. And you still think there’s no smoke without fire, don’t you? You still think they could be guilty. But that’s the point I’m making. It’s impossible for celebrities to recover from an accusation that reaches the mainstream media.

So what’s the answer?

Simple, don’t do bad things.

Perhaps easier said than done, of course, but my advice would be, always try to be a good person on the way up, then you won’t have to worry that the media will come for your blood.

Of course sometimes they’ll come to get you anyway. Because it’s your turn. Like Cliff Richard in the UK, an innocent singer persecuted his entire life because he never married. The British have a perverse appetite for public humiliation. I don’t know why. I used to live there and I know they love to build stars up so the media can knock them down.

In Australia it’s different. Ozzies don’t even bother building you up. You’re a scab and a tool just for wanting attention. The Tall Poppy Syndrome is alive and well here, I can tell you.

The Americans are more reverent about their stars, if you’re rich and famous, treating you with due care and respect, unless it later transpires you’re a total sleaze.

Unless you’re elected President - and then you’re fair game.

From the rest of the world’s point of view, the relentless attempts to undermine and destroy Clinton, Bush, Biden, and Trump seem obtuse, even strange. Especially when (allegedly, according to Tucker Carlson) a certain other President of color is clearly the man with the most to lose. Not because he and his “wife” might be gay. There’s nothing wrong with that. But why hide and deny the fact for such a long time? Surely that’s simply fraud on a massive scale.

And we wonder why so many people think the Earth is flat and we never went to the Moon. People don’t know what to think anymore because deception is so rampant in our society, from the top down.

I think there’s a reason for all this.

We want to accuse and incriminate people as a way of deflecting attention from ourselves. I guess we need to analyze other people’s shortcomings before we can clearly see ourselves. Plus, there’s an element of adolescent righteousness about mocking others with our own faults.

So, really, the best way to go through life is NOT to be an example of the worst kind of behaviors. Sure, we can’t always live up to the ever tightening moral yoke we insist on creating for ourselves, but we can try.

See you next week when, hopefully, I will talk more about writing.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy