Tag Archives: Stephen King

What if I Fail as a Writer?

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What if I Fail as a Writer?

Rory C. Keel

 

So you want to be a writer but you’re afraid of failure. Perhaps your dream is to write a novel, publish an article in a magazine, or write a famous screenplay but the idea of failing keeps you from ever starting. Putting the “cart before the horse,” as they say, can skew a person’s thinking.

Here are five steps to help realign your thinking so you can achieve your dream of success.

  1. Realize success comes in steps.

Achieving any goal is like walking up a staircase, it has to be one step at a time. Honestly assess where you are in your writing skills. Do you understand grammar and sentence structure? Perhaps you’re farther along and need to work on story telling or plotting?

By knowing where you are on the staircase of writing, you can know what your next step is. That next step is success.

   2. Reaching the next step can be difficult.

Famous authors such as Stephen King, Charles Frazier, Larry McMurtry, J.K. Rowling didn’t reach fame in one day. It takes hours of putting one word next to another, days of sitting in a chair, months of research and rewriting, and sometimes years of waiting for a project to be noticed. Take one step today and another tomorrow and you will be successful.

   3. You will run into obstacles.

Have you ever walked through the house in the dark to get a drink from the kitchen and stubbed your toe on the coffee table? Immediately you scream OBSTACLES!

Understand there will be hindrances to your writing such as finding time to write, family members that need attention, or even the need to make a living and pay the bills.

That’s life. These things still exist for famous authors, they have just learned to prioritize and deal with them.

   4. Surround yourself with other writers.

By surrounding yourself with other writers, you set yourself up to succeed. Learn from others who have what you want. Success is a level small or great not a final ending. So when you associate with those who desire to write and have a mindset to accomplish goals, you become motivated to move along with them.  Famous authors haven’t reached the pinnacle, they only have a greater level of what you can achieve in a small step tomorrow – SUCCESS!

   5. Never, ever, give up on your dream.

“Lots of people limit their possibilities by giving up easily. Never tell yourself this is too much for me. It’s no use. I can’t go on. If you do, you’re licked, and by your own thinking, too. Keep believing and keep on keeping on.” — Norman Vincent Peale

roryckeel.com

Spooks

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Outtakes 218

Spooks

by Cait Collins

I love the fun of Halloween. Kids and adults dressed up and pretending to be someone or something they aren’t is part of the holiday. I just don’t get the all the slasher, zombie, and thriller costumes. Whatever happened to doctors and nurses, cops and robbers, cute little witches and devils? It seems these days the more gruesome the costume, the more hefty the sales. What is the draw to being scared or grossed out?

Take books as an example. I’ve read good horror and I’ve read terrible horror. The bad novels are usually good for a laugh. In attempting to be frightening, the stories can become campy and silly. The good stuff I can’t read. Sorry, but I don’t like being frightened. I tried reading Stephen King’s IT. When I got to the description of the cellar, I had to close the book. King is so masterful with his description, he terrifies me. I could not only see the cellar, I could feel it, smell it, and taste it. That’s too real.

Think about it. What is more frightening; a zombie or a boy-next-door serial killer. I’m more frightened by reality, by something that could actually happen than fantasy characters. I couldn’t sleep after reading Helter Skelter. Charles Manson is far scarier than the Phantom of the Opera. Reality is makes good fiction because a writer has a plot and characters at hand.

I may not enjoy ghouls and goblins, but I appreciate the talent it takes to write good horror. The Stephen Kings, R. L. Steins, and Dean Koontz’s are rare and should be respected. That said; forgive me if I prefer my suspense and women’s fiction books.

 

Rejected

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Rejected

By Nandy Ekle

Crushed! How could they! I’ve never been so insulted in my life! I just don’t think I can go on.

The earth shattering thing that just happened was I received a rejection for my story. No explanation, just a form letter advising me my story does not fit their needs. They really had some nerve.

Okay, that may have been a little melodramatic. The truth was I probably didn’t send the right story to the right place. I should have done a little deeper research. And in this day and age, when research is just a tippity tap away on the internet, there really is no excuse for not researching the intended publisher.

But it does sting when we get the rejection letters. We tend to take it personally. We worked on this story, coaxing it to life, and working tirelessly on each and every word. We love the concept and believe the tale is as beautiful as our children. And the we’re told it’s not worthy for that particular publication.

But sometimes I think I just need an attitude adjustment. This is when I turn to the masters. It’s hard to believe that someone like Stephen King every had to endure the tragedy of rejection. In his book, On Writing, he reveals that as a teenager, he pounded a nail into the wall of his bedroom. Every rejection he received, he would impale the slip on the nail. He states that by the time he was fourteen he had so many rejections they would not all fit on the nail. And he was not even old enough to drive a car.

The other side of this confession is that by the time he was fourteen, he had submitted enough stories to receive more rejection slips than could fit on the nail.

The moral of the story is, rejections can be hard on your feelings, but they are also a sign that you’re writing and submitting your babies, which is what we are supposed to be doing.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

The Wizard

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

The Wizard

A recent series of young adult books has reminded me how fun it is to believe in magic. Can you remember the first time you watched the movie The Wizard of Oz? How about Cinderella or Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Remember sitting in front of the television and not even being able to blink your eyes as magical things happened to make scarecrow talk and pumpkins turn into carriages and little orange people mix chocolate by waterfall? And how did you feel when the words “The End” scrolled up on the screen?

Writing is that way. You know the story because you’ve listened to the characters tell it in their own words. Your job is to take the story they told you and find the magic words that will weave a spell around your reader and keep them glued to your words.

Stephen King uses the term “telepathy,” and that’s a very good description. But J. K. Rowling goes a little further and alludes to “a book that casts a spell that won’t let the reader put it down.”

The magic comes from words spun like a spell, winding around the reader’s eyes and pulling their imagination to the page. They can’t put the book down until the story ends, and then they turn back to the beginning and start over.

Look for magic all around you and the words will appear.

Congratulations. You have received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle

Wedge of Writing

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The Gift Of An Author

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

 

The Gift Of An Author

By Nandy Ekle

 

Imagine walking down a hallway of closed doors. Each door has a plaque above it with the title of a story, and a few doors have plaques with no words on them as if waiting for a name. You hear voices behind every one and knocking comes from the other side of two or three at the same time. You’re standing in front of a door listening to loud, insistent pounding and a voice calling your name over and over. You reach out to turn the knob and realize it’s locked and you don’t have a key.

Where is the key? That door was just opened a few days ago and you visited with the voices behind it like gossiping neighbors. Why is it locked so tightly now?

This is how I imagine writer’s block. It’s frustrating and scary and can even be debilitating. It’s like losing eyesight or a hand. And I’ve been there lately.

These are the times I turn to my good friends Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and a myriad of other flourishing writers. I open a successful book written by one of these masters and beg them to instruct me once again about writing again. I get lost in their stories and feel them tug at the door with me.

Then the miracle happens. As I turn the page, enrapt in the worlds they created, I find the key to the door. I slip it into the keyhole and feel the lock turn, allowing the door to open. My characters run out and embrace me as my hands fly across the keyboard of my computer once more.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Experiment

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 Experiment 

By Nandy Ekle

 

Voice. How do you have a voice in writing? Voice is an author’s uniqueness. This has to do with word choice and the direction you take your story. I might write with a very formal voice and my characters are very prim and proper, but you might write using more casual words and ideas and your characters more like every day people walking around at the mall.

Style is the way you tell your story. This can include punctuation, or the lack of it; where and why a writer breaks for a paragraph; or the length of chapters.

It’s no secret that I read a lot of Stephen King books/stories. I can read one page of a story and pretty much tell you if it’s something he wrote or not, even if it’s something of his I’ve never seen or heard about before. And that’s because of his voice and style. However, there are a few of his stories that have surprised me, and in a good way. In fact, one of the reasons I love certain King books over some of the others is because the voice and style is so different.

The Shining. I don’t know how many times I’ve said it, but I will continue saying it until I can’t say it anymore. This book is incredible because of the style (among a million other reasons). As a student of writing rules, I can point out where each rule has been broken. But each rule is broken for specific reasons, and it was absolutely done in absolutely the right place at absolutely the right time. There are places in that book where reading the words and the placement or absence of punctuation actually made me feel like I was caught in a whirlpool going down a drain. Amazing illusion!

The Eyes of the Dragon. The first time I read this book I had never heard of it. “Hhhmmm,” I said as I took it off the library shelf. At the time I was feasting on the fantasy genre, and that’s where this book fits. I was wonderfully surprised because      Mr. King uses a much different voice for this story. He actually sounds a little like          J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit. I definitely suggest this book for anyone who wants to study voice and style.

Dolores Claiborne. Not so much a shift in voice form Mr. King, but a substantial shift in style. He wrote this story in the voice of a woman, and as a woman myself, I will tell you he did an amazing job of it. But as far as not sounding like Stephen King, well, he does. You see, Dolores is a woman who has a rough and hard demeanor. That’s actually what the story is about. Survival. The thing that makes the style so different is he did not break into chapters. The whole story is told in one long narrative. And, again, that was the right thing to do. There are times when stopping to change chapters is more distracting than anything else. The result is this book is a very fast read, in spite of the thickness of the book.

Okay. Now it’s our turn. A couple of exercises here. First, try to write part of your current work in progress in the voice of your favorite author, and the style they use the most. This will teach you to think like they do, which can be very helpful. Next, take a piece of your current WIP and use an opposite voice and completely different style. This will help you decide if you actually have the right thing in the right place at the right time.

Now, show off a little bit and post your experiment in the comments below.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

Who’s In Control

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Who’s In Control

By Nandy Ekle

 

Raise your hand if this has ever happened to you.

You are struck with a brilliant idea. You have the characters set, the scene, the plot, everything planned. You sit down and begin writing the story exactly as you’ve seen it play out in your head. You have a specific goal in mind and specific steps to get there. Your characters are strong living beings. Everything is falling in place and you’re typing like a maniac.

Suddenly you realize the characters have taken the story away from you and the whole thing has changed. You started out with a fun little romp, but the words that come out of your fingers have taken on a foreshadowing ominous tone.

I have to confess every story I’ve ever written does this. Usually I’m pleasantly surprised and just go with it. But occasionally I’m puzzled. I’m known for writing twisted dark stories. But sometimes I want to write something fun.

Stephen King spoke about a time for decision making when he wrote The Shining. He said he had to decide if he wanted to write it as a fun scary ghost story, boom, boom, boom. Or he could dig deeper and write from the soul. He made the decision to go deep and analyze each character to the very core instead of just having a ghost jump out and scream boo. The result of his decision was a masterpiece.

So, the answer to my question? I will probably listen to the characters. After all, it is their story.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

The Dump

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

The Dump 

By Nandy Ekle

 

“The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

One time I read a story with a very complicated plot. A lot of this plot depended on the 200-year family history. The author had an incredible tale, but I was never able to finish it because the first one hundred pages gave the whole history at once. It was a very convoluted history with lots of characters and lots of twists and turns.

This is called information dump. I asked the author about the reason for placing the backstory at the front of the book in one giant swallow and the answer was that it was critical to understanding the present day story. And this was, to some extent, true.

However, there are other ways to accomplish this. If you’ve ever read any Stephen King books, you’ve seen this done brilliantly.

One of his methods is with dialogue. Two who have not seen each other in a while will have a conversation bringing each other up to date on news from the past. This can also be used to drop clues as to the trickier parts of the story.

Another one of Mr. King’s methods is to start the story at a place in the backstory as if it’s happening at that moment. After the pertinent information is out, he flashes forward to the actual story.

Another interesting way to get the history out there for the reader is in dreams. This can be fund because dreams are symbolic and just about anything can be used to transfer the important history.

And, of course, there’s always flashbacks. But always remember, elephants are best eaten one bite at a time instead of all at once.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

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Outtakes 173

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

By Cait Collins

 

Most folks in the United States joke about the local weather. In the Texas Panhandle we make comments like, “You don’t like the weather? Well, just wait five minutes and it’ll change.” Last night was a perfect example of Panhandle weather. It was a balmy 72 degrees when I walked into the grocery store. I walked out forty-five minutes later only to be confronted with 40–50 mile an hour winds an air temperature of 47 degrees. It went downhill from there. Hello winter.

The great thing about the cold weather is I have the perfect excuse to sit by the fire and read. It maybe my imagination, but the world seems quieter when it’s cold. It’s as if a sleep has descended, the imagination opens, and I can really get into the story. And there are some fantastic stories out there.

If you’re look for a good read, here are some suggestions.

Killing Patton, Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy                    Bill O’Riley

The Heroes of Olympus series (great for adults and kids)     Rick Riordan

Virtue Falls                                                                             Christina Dodd

The Cousins O’Dwyer Trilogy                                              Nora Roberts

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn                                       Mark Twain

The Longmire Series                                                               Craig Johnson

Son of No One                                                                        Sherrilyn Kenyon

Revival                                                                                    Stephen King

 

And if you feel guilty about taking a break from your writing, just remember reading is part of a writer’s job. How can we be good writers if we’re not good readers?

Happy reading.