Seize the Day (by the throat)

If you don’t write because you don’t have time, then you don’t want to write at all. There’s more time in a day than there is ambition in most wannabe writers. Your average author has more time management skill than a watch repairman. And that’s just the common toiler at the craft, the one who churns out wordbuckets of chum only because they’ve extinguished their wiles on finding the time to pollute the word world with mediocrity. Credit where credit’s due.

The real battle to write isn’t in the weapons or strategy. It’s in finding the battlefield.

That’s why we’re Writing All Wrong.

I’ve really tried hard to focus on finding time to write, but I just can’t seem to fit it in my hectic life. Balancing a job and kids takes a toll, and I spend more time recovering from all of it. It just seems to be one of those things where I spend more time preparing to do some writing (poetry, bits and pieces of a novel, a short story here and there, reflection) than actually writing. I’m not a natural procrastinator, but if I don’t make time to do what I want, then I won’t do it at all. What do good writers do to make time for writing? Thanks.

—Olivia McCloskey, San Marcos, Tex.

Your life isn’t hectic, you’re not supposed to “balance” jobkids, and you’re overvaluing recovery. Can’t you just knock down shots of tequila in between Max and Ruby episodes?

I can already see how you mismanage your day, leading to such tumult. For starters, if the kids aren’t helping with the farm, they’re probably not helping at all. I’d suggest seeing what they’ll fetch at auction or look into trading up for older children who occupy themselves. That may be a drastic step, but unless you pony up for a governess, you can kiss your writing and your life goodbye.

And the job? Unless you’re like everyone I hate in life, you probably need an income stream that isn’t generated by your wealthy forbears. Might want to keep that. I trust you’re already writing during your commute, union breaks, and quite possibly during your mundane office work that isn’t really work anyway. If not, that needs to change. Or check the yellow pages for “Daddy, Sugar.”

Let’s assume you’re on the way to freeing your life as prescribed. Good for you! Now to heighten your ambition, let’s look at your day re-imagined as a writer:

2:00 AM to 6:00 AM: Musing on your failure the previous day, somnifically plotting for your next labors, dreaming of coherent narratives. Optional: sleeping.

6:00 AM to 7:00 AM: Swearing at the alarm clock, drinking enough coffee to see into tomorrow and burn your eyes clean, and a primal yell to greet the dawn’s vanquishment of night. Capture the idea swirl as it siphons the dregs of dreams.

7:00 AM to 9:00 AM: If you’ve done it right, your pot of coffee should get you to breakfast. Write, and keep writing. Keep some potassium chloride (or ether, if you’re old-school) on hand for distractions, because that’s gotta stop.

9:00 AM to 9:15 AM: Sneak in a breakfast while you take your bathroom break. Don’t get them confused, because eating Cocoa Puffs from a toilet is a mistake you won’t catch until it’s too late.

9:15 AM to 12:00 PM: Keep writing. You’ve already written two hours worth of sputum—it only gets better if you stick to it. Most of the waking world should be on its way toward wrecking your day. If you haven’t sold the kids yet, ensure they’re glued to Nick Jr’s. HypnoTown – keeps ‘em from whining about food or attention. Your boss should know you won’t be in today—hope you told him that you’re dealing with some sort of lava measles or scarlet mumps in one of those kids (whom you’re ignoring for the sake of the craft).

12:00 PM to 1:00 PM: Eat something, pump up that brain of yours. You’re taxing it for all it’s worth. Drink more coffee or make use of those illegal stimulants your live-in stashes in the bread box. Can’t have a food coma interrupting progress. HypnoTown’s over: change it up with an array of mind-sucking DVDs. Call your boss, vomiting into the phone for effect, letting him know you’re serious about the bubonic plague redux you didn’t report this morning.

1:00 PM to 3:00 PM: What you wrote? Yeah, that’s no good. Go back and do it better. Don’t be deserving of that potassium chloride injection. Make something of your life.

3:00 PM to 3:43 PM: Who shorted the DVD player with a steady stream of drool? Don’t blame the kid. Blame yourself for neglecting to slobber-proof this thing. And they’re complaining about eating beef jerky for breakfast? Ran out of Gushers too? Wow. Better call up that auction house if you want to salvage this day, or else it’s a afternoon’s worth of Best Buy and GroceryMart.

3:43 PM to 5:39 PM: Because you didn’t call the auction house.

5:39 PM to 5:45 PM: Skittles and M&Ms for dinner? Now that’s pragmatic.

5:45 PM to 6:58 PM: “Mommy’s going to play ‘Silent Hide & Seek’ with you! If you find me, you have to be real quiet or else you don’t win.” — I’m not sold, but whatever works for you here, so be it. Keep writing.

6:58 PM to 8:17 PM: Because you thought leaving the crayons and coloring books within reach was a good idea. At least the kids colored within the lines. Well, within the lines of your walls and furniture. And the cat ate your Magic Eraser? We have a cat here? This situation must be addressed.

8:17 PM to 9:00 PM: Better be writing while you read these bedtime stories. Or just read them what you wrote today. Can’t stress the soporific potency of bad writing.

9:00 PM to 9:02 PM: Take some time to kick back and relax. You’ve had a busy day.

9:02 PM to midnight: Time for the final strike. House to yourself? Perfect. Cozy up in a bathrobe and light a candle. Take some of that liquor cabinet with you if needed. Snack on those leftover Skittles stuck to the table. And if you haven’t written anything of consequence, then you’d better carry this into the wee hours of tomorrow.

Midnight to the wee hours of tomorrow: Yeah, I figured.

Writing All Wrong can be reached via email (WritingAllWrong@me.com), followed on Twitter (@WritingAllWrong), and plotted into your minute-by-minute planner. 

Like-for-Like

“The cannonball scythed through the battalion like a machete through hapless brush.” “Waking up, I felt like I’d crawled from warm sands to an icy tide.” “He smelled like month-old cheese served on a day-old sock.”

Figures of speech. The simile. Describing everything as if it were everything else. The masters produce the right image, the right feeling, the exact thing they want you to experience. The failures fail, failing like a failure at life who failed failing.

That’s why we’re Writing All Wrong.

What is the key to using a good simile (like “life is like a box of chocolates”)? 

—Gerald Siegel, Hamilton, Ont.

(Note: a simile is a figure of speech comparing two different things, usually using “like,” “as,” or “kinda like, y’know, like.” If you didn’t know that by now, then I don’t know what to tell you or your excuse for an English teacher.)

A good simile is like a candle that burns forever, even burning your house down when you don’t want it anymore.

A bad simile is like a flashlight that helps you see in the dark.

A good simile is like a fireproof raincoat, keeping you alive when it’s raining cats, dogs, and fireballs.

A bad simile is like an umbrella that doesn’t let rain hit you.

A good simile is like making out with a sandbox.

A bad simile is like an awkward lover.

A good simile is like tasting a hint of honey when you lick an envelope seal.

A bad simile is like a pleasant surprise when you least expect it.

A good simile is like a tiramisu that puts you over the blood alcohol limit.

A bad simile is like a better dessert after a good meal.

A good simile is like breaking your enemy’s legs, then breaking his wheelchair later on.

A bad simile is like getting sweet revenge.

A good simile is like eating the ants at your picnic.

A bad simile is like taking lemons and making lemonade.

A good simile is like your toast landing butter side up.

A bad simile is like the sun breaking through on a cloudy day.

A good simile is like a frozen rose.

A bad simile is like a classic case of unrequited love.

A good simile is like being struck by lightning while winning the lottery.

A bad simile is like a double rainbow all the way across the sky.

A good simile is like a fat boy furiously digging Earth’s last corn dog out from under the car seat.

A bad simile is like being so hungry you could eat an elephant.

A good simile is like eating an apple pie wrapped in an American flag on the 4th of July.

A bad simile is like showering in crisp lemonade while caressing the bosom of a one-eyed snowman.

A good simile is like a hayride in a bouncy castle with the microwave on medium-rare.

A bad simile is like a cage match between a mechanical platypus and I don’t want to visit the dentist anymore.

A good simile is like a Canadian petrol boy shock-inhaling the leafy green to get the motor kicked up and guzzling that Molson can.

A bad simile is like riding a gumball machine on a one-legged icicle and filling a Toyota’s airsick bag with purple-fun cotton candy while taking it to a tornado party of vanilla bacon and hippopotamus puppeteering.

Crap, I think this thing broke again.

Writing All Wrong can be reached via email (WritingAllWrong@me.com), followed on Twitter (@WritingAllWrong), and directly compared to a herd of coati mundi trampling the foetid excesses of poor writesmanship. 

Persona Non-Fiction

Truth is stranger than fiction. And it’s harder to write about. When you don’t have the unreal at your disposal, the box of parlor tricks is reduced to a goodie bag, if that. While you may have the framework of the real on your side, the legwork of writing effervescent prose is up to you.

You move from being the powerful architect to being the interior decorator. Unless you’ve taken Christopher Lowell’s Interior WOW! for Writers™ seminar, it’s not the smoothest transition. Even if it’s not a transition, you probably weren’t good at non-fiction writing anyway.

That’s why we’re Writing All Wrong.

All fiction, all the time—that’s what Writing All Wrong should be about. Seems like you couldn’t handle writing something that isn’t purely in the fictional realm. Not everyone writes just for fun, you know. You highlight only the recreational side of writing, and I think you fail to give non-fiction writing its due because you’re not serious, and you cannot seriously dispense advice for those of us who write for a purpose.

—Sofia DiBenedetto, Kenilworth, Ill.

Sofia, I’m sorry that you write poorly. It’s fairly evident, given your double-fail combo of seriously repeating “serious” and your clumsy handling of three clauses within one sentence. I’d like to say I understand how you feel, but I don’t.

I think you’re more the fictional exclusivist than I am the non-fiction non-inclusivist. Besides, non-fiction and fiction writing are just two sides of the same coin. Only one side of that coin is  real, and the other side isn’t. Stop me if I’m going too fast for you. I’m not sure how good you are at math, even if it’s non-fictional.

Even when there’s a story in place, you’re not spared the work (or the privilege, for the masochists) of telling that story. Just as you can fall flat in telling a fictional tale, you can enliven something that really happened in this non-fictional world. Cadence, description, poignancy, clarity, and tone are found in the toolkits of both fiction and non-fiction writers. It’s a shame when they’re not used, regardless of content.

Take the following excerpt:

“He knew the theater as well as he knew his own residence, having free reign over its corridors and backstages by virtue of ‘owning’ its stage on occasion. No one would have thought much of him boring an inconspicuous peephole in one of the doors upstairs. He couldn’t afford barging in uninvited and unexpected, since most playgoers settled in with their social circle long before the show. But for a man of his profession, slinking around in the back would just be part of his doing, non-intrusive and to a degree, expected. As for expectation, it was critical to his plot. He knew well how the play would unfold, when certain actors would be onstage, and which line would provide the ‘perfect moment.’”

And here I go again, Sofia. Perfect example of how to write good, purposeless, un-serious stories, right? Right. I don’t believe in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth either. Pure fiction.

Writing All Wrong can be reached via email (WritingAllWrong@me.com), followed on Twitter (@WritingAllWrong), and featured on page 4D of the Investor’s Business Daily (a completely non-fictional publication, I think).