Tag: Random

New Year’s Revolutions

Welcome, New Year. You have no idea what you’re getting into.

We’re a day into 2012. By now, over half of the New Year’s resolutions have already been broken. Don’t eat the entire bag of Cheetos. Don’t get drunk enough to swallow your own vomit. Be responsible. Lose fifty pounds. Write.

And what you fail in resolution, you fail without making revolution.

That’s why we’re Writing All Wrong.

Writing All Wrong,

What are some good New Year’s Resolutions for writers in 2012?

—Avinash Dvarakanath, Paterson, N.J.

No resolution trumps a New Year’s revolution. Go beyond “resolving” to do things. History has time and again proven that man’s resolve is insufficient to effect change. But a revolution? Ah, now we’re talking.

Revolution 1: Influence

If you’re like the rest of us, you’re human. If so, you’re susceptible to influence both good and bad. Don’t let yourself be influenced by lesser writers who entertain you on Twitter or by those who garner the acclaim of the masses of mediocrity. Take care in who you let bleed into your writing, consciously or otherwise.

Revolution 2: Substance

Stop drinking soda, drink more coffee. Beyond that, make your stories speak of stronger substance. Better to spend a month firming up the raw substance (topic matter, character, lucid plot) of storycraft and write for a day than to write for a month on a day’s worth of meager substance.

Revolution 3: Sustenance

Read stronger books. Classics, idiot. Enough with the vampire/zombie tales for now.

Revolution 4: Balance

All write and no play makes Jack an incomprehensible mess of an artist (and possibly a killer psycho ravaging the Stanley Hotel). You need life balance more than you think you do.

Revolution 5: Violence

Whatsoever thou doest, do with all thy might. Sometimes you need to get your hands dirty, bloody even, if you’re looking to make it happen in 2012. Cancel that dog-walking therapy this year. Skimp on birthday shopping if time is better used for writing. Shower coldly in the morning. Those who have moved earth with vehemence are those who grow the gardens to splendor.

Revolution 6: Relevance

You can be relevant and have your flash-in-the-pancake, or you can shoot for a slice of the eternal. Note: this means your vampire/zombie/undead fiction is going to be stale in a decade, more dead than when you wrote it. Read that last line again. A quick buck is less than a penny down the road.

Revolution 7: Obstinance

If you found, founded, or find something that works, it’s OK to keep doing that. The motive d’jour is change. Don’t change for change’s sake. If you’ve got enough to blast you beyond the stratosphere, then stick to what fuels that rocket. Be daring. Be unchanged.

Revolution 8: Abstinence

You don’t always need a word count each day to be a writer worth writing. You don’t always need support groups. You don’t always need to enter flash fiction contests. You don’t always need the tantalizing tickle of someone famous. You don’t always need blog hits or re-tweets. Abstain from such. Keep writing.

Revolution 9

A classic. (And you probably saw that one coming.)

What revolutions do you plan for 2012?

Writing All Wrong can be reached via email (WritingAllWrong@me.com), followed on Twitter (@WritingAllWrong), and revolutionized for takeoff.

Writing Good Christmas Cards

We’re taking a turn for the festive here at Writing All Wrong, engorging on Christmas cookies, cakes, and guzzling peppermint/gingerbread mochas, brewing a storm of writing under snow and mistletoe.

Right.

The holiday season is like a yearly maelstrom that’s on every calendar sold in America, but it doesn’t appear until about two weeks before it hits. You can plan writing. You can’t plan holidays. You might be able to plan writing during the holidays.

That’s why we’re Writing All Wrong.

Speaking of writing How do i write a good Christmas card?

—Greg Danning, Schenectady, N.Y. 

I’m flattered that you ask: no one does this anymore, except me. Writing is eternal, seeping into all corners of life. I’ve single-handedly enlightened the Christmases of all I know, spreading cheer with gracious and thoughtful cards, lovingly handwritten by candlelight. I spend every evening in December at my escritoire, humming along to Bing Crosby and Andy Williams as they croon the holidays to the tune of my writing in longhand.

If you have to ask, then you obviously live in a mindset when it’s always winter, but never Christmas. Here’s how you amp up those Christmas cards and put the “Jolly” back in “Have a Lolly Jolly Christmas.”

1. Acknowledge everyone in the family.

“Hey Todd, hope you and Vixen (and your ex-wives Roxxy, Charmayne, and Skyy[sp?]) are doing well this holiday season!”

Don’t leave anyone out. People hate being left out, and they hate when you leave out people important to them.

2. Create suspense and eagerness.

“I enclosed $20, since I figured you could use a bit of extra Christmas cash. Enjoy!”

I love this. I typically enclose the $20 before I mail it, but I’ll remove the bill before sealing the envelope. It’s a great way to get a return letter, phone call, something to keep the lines of communication open.

3. Make sure they know what’s on your mind, what you’re up to.

“I wish you all the best, but we’re doing great! Can’t believe what fortune we’ve enjoyed with our getaway house! Lovingly sent from under a palm tree in Maui, Writing All Wrong.” 

How else will people know what you’re up to these days? Don’t ask, do tell.

4. Don’t wish well, wish specific.

“Wishing you a swift move out of the unemployment line, and here’s hoping your furnace doesn’t kick the bucket this chilly Christmas season (since I know you had to cut back on presents from the cost repairing it already).

Precisely. Show some forethought. General wellwishing is no wellwishing at all.

5. Use holiday generosity as a springboard for offering favors.

“Just saw the pics of that new backhoe — you should come up for a cup of cocoa and Wild Turkey and help us out with the ditch we’re diggin’. Spend the night or two or however long it takes, whatever. It’ll be fun!”

Always give a chance for people to offer you favors. It’s in the Spirit of Christmas, after all.

Feel free to share what makes your Christmas cards as special as mine.

Writing All Wrong can be reached via email (WritingAllWrong@me.com), followed on Twitter (@WritingAllWrong), and re-gifted in a white elephant soiree.

Writing Contest? Duh, WINNING!

Most of you may not know this, but writing can translate into a few pecuniary benefits. Sometimes even monetary. You really don’t have to do it for free. But outside of cashing in on wordspew, the next best thing you can wing is winning. Contests, limerick slams, plein air poetry airing, whatever. People compete with this business, breaking out the arsenal and making communication a written race-to-the-top.

But does the best writing always win? Nope.

That’s why we’re Writing All Wrong.

There’s a writing contest I want to enter. 250-word minimum, and I really want to win! HELP!

—Daphne Green, Fairmont, W.Va.

Didn’t we just get over this contest thing?

That’s not a question.

In a perfect world, I could say, “Write your best,” and that would do it. Cartographic psychoholic thriller? Should be a surefire winner. Borgesian short story with a metaphoric denouement? Hand over that store-bought trophy. A perfect world. Not happening on today’s planet.

No, the contest is rigged with more wires, catches, and detonations than a maniacal professor’s Bomb Diffusement 405 final project. It’s a trapdoor that trips under the weight of greatness. If you write well, then you’re cheating. Contests are meant to reward the mediocre, not herald anything worth reading or writing. So how do you win without coming at it like a natural dunce with a swell of dumb luck?

Know the contest.

Not just rules. They publish rules. Know the people, know who’s judging, know the contest creators. If this is Highlights for Toddlers you’re writing to, keep the meth-strung, zoo-liberating, black-caped unicorn out of the narrative. The Student Siren? Nothing profound. Won’t wake most from a booze-soaked stupor. Go for the flashbang in the wrought-iron pan.

Know the judges.

Make them smile or cry. They’ve got to smile or cry. That’s the sad part about appeasing these flighty judges. The best writing should be a combination of scalpel and machete, writing so good it cuts into your innards and works surgical voodoo. Writing so good it makes a clean chop through brush, crop, and limb. A “whoa, that’s one heck of a blade omigod where’s my arm?” kind of strike. In a perfect world, I want to be maimed by deft writing, wounded. Or I want that scalpel cutting new pathways into my cerebrum, leaving me more room to think when I’m no longer under the literary ether. Judges? No. Make them think too hard and that five-pack of two-dollar blue ribbon goes elsewhere. To the cheeky entry that got an “Oh, that’s cute, I like this” or an “Oh wow, that’s so special I wanted to cry” out of them.

Know thyself.

Every subjective contest (writing, cooking, ice dancing, interpretive sleepwalking, etc.) ends up being a popularity contest. It just makes sense to continue awarding those whom most people like. If you’re the popular kid in class, then just submit something without any glaring errors, and you’ve got yourself a winner. The key to winning is winning the hearts, minds, and fickle affections of your peers, judges, and by proxy, the contest arbiters.

If your worthy writing entry falls ever short to those of Suzie Perfect and Eric Awesome, let it slide. Popularity is fleeting. Art is forever. Winning everything isn’t the only thing.

Writing All Wrong can be reached via email (WritingAllWrong@me.com), followed on Twitter (@WritingAllWrong), and voted in Women’s Digest’s annual “Write Me A Man Made Like How You Like Your Coffee” contest.