#FridayFlash, NaNo and Writing About Writing

It's funny how things go.  When I first started writing there was no way I'd show my stuff to people. I also knew there would be a long way until I could muster the courage to do so. Although, I knew that nowadays writing doesn't have to be a strictly lonely activity, so I signed up for Twitter and started talking to like minded people. 

This is when I first learned about #FridayFlash. Oh boy, how badly I wanted to be a part of it!  But I was still shy, so I watched, read and learned. 

On May 2010 I finally gathered my wits and wrote my first flash fiction, Zombie Walk.  The response was so great that it even got published on an e-zine, Flashes in the Dark, and it inspired me to run a contest Zombie Luv, which was so very funny and a great success! Recently, to my surprise, it was accepted in the anthology The Best of Friday Flash vol. 2, or as we affectionately call it, BOFF #2. (I strongly suggest you follow the links and buy the thing. The stories there are... Wow!)

After that first push I got a little bolder. I wrote weekly stories and made great friends in the #FridayFlash community. I even joined WeSeWrimo (Web Serial Writing Month) and NaNoWrimo (National Novel Writing Month), and got some great writing experience from it. 

WeSeWrimo I "won" kind of easily, since you're the one setting your own goals. I was very modest and made the best of it. NaNoWrimo is something different altogether. You have to write 50K words in a month, and if you have never tried something like that, let me tell you this is no easy task. NaNo flunked very early on, but I wasn't too upset about it. 

A few months later life got the better of me and I stopped writing. It took me over a year to put it together so I could even consider the writing venture again. No matter, in due time I got back and I do write a few stories now and then, and even, *cough, cough* poems. O.o (Not showing those publicly, sorry! :P) 

Ironically enough, now that I write much less than I used to, I find myself writing about writing. Back when I started Randomities (this blog you're reading, if you're new here ;) I set a goal of sharing only my stories and other random stuff. What I least wanted was to write about writing, because I thought that such meta-writing was for the likes of Stephen King, not people like me. 

Well, life got the better of me again! Recently I was humbled and honored to be invited to join the #FF staff as a contributing correspondent. I hope I'll be up to the challenge! You can make your own mind about it by reading my first article: "NaNo madness this year? Thanks, but no thanks".

So, if you're curious to know why my NaNo experience flunked, and more importantly, why I'm totally okay with it, follow the link above. I hope you'll find it somehow useful. ;) While you're at it, I suggest you browse through the Friday Flash website. It's full of information and links to uncountable wondrous stories. Have fun! 

Pause

Hello everyone! It's been a while, no? Have you missed me? I sure have missed you all. :)


I've missed having time to write too, which I haven't had much lately. Or rather, at all! See, my last post was from 31st of August and I haven't been able to visit my writing pals' blogs or chatting on twitter or facebook. Do you realize my last post on twitter is over 20 days old? O.o


Yeah, things have been a bit crazy here in "real life". In fact, in the past few months I've moved from one side of the world to the other, I've changed professions and I've changed my main writing project altogether. Lots of stuff to deal with! 


(What is "real" after all? But we do have to care for our bodies, so we have to work and earn money, right?)


With all that happening and other things going on I realized it would be better to allow myself the time to take care of them and create a better structure in life to allow me getting back to my darling trolls and other characters. 


So this is an indefinite pause in randomities and my writing life. 


My hopes are that things will fall into place on the next few months, but if you feel this is taking way too much, please do give me a nudge! ;P 


Oh, right! There are some people who asked me to give feedback on their work. I will look into the material I've already received and those who are still to send me their work, please don't shy out because of this pause! If you still want this crazy woman's perspective, I still want to give it to you! heh


Well, that's a bye for now, but not a goodbye! XD

Spotlight Time! Kristin Neff

The Spotlight Time series was created to showcase people's work I feel deserve a special attention. The book  Self-compassion - Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, by Kristin Neff, certainly falls into that category. See why.

*

I've come across this book through a newspaper article named Down With Self-Esteem? At first, I was intrigued but suspicious, but as I read, all suspicion vanished. In her book, the article explains, Kristin Neff, PhD makes a good point of differencing self-esteem from self-compassion. 


The former is based on narcissism and excessive competitiveness, which lead people to feel constantly unsatisfied with themselves, their egos frequently hurt. Their behavior and life stile consequently reflect these feelings, as well as their interaction with others. The latter means accepting that we are all human thus fallible, not only in theory but in practice. 


My reaction to this general idea was the same you're probably having: "Okay, that's a nice thought, but how the heck do I do that?" 


First of all it's important to mention that Kristin doesn't say that we shouldn't have any self-esteem, but that there shouldn't be a reason for us to like ourselves. The moment we question that, we start comparing ourselves to others and things go downhill. We should care for ourselves no matter how many mistakes we make, how fat we are, how better we'd like to be. This is where self-compassion comes in. 


Self-compassion doesn't mean to settle with less than we'd like. Of course we should strive to be better people, to have good things and to feel good about our bodies, but we shouldn't compare ourselves and "our things" to others('s). Self compassion means not judging ourselves when we make mistakes, means being gentle with ourselves when we're in pain, caring for ourselves instead of punishing ourselves for not being (or looking) as successful as our neighbor. 


So how do we do all that? We start by paying attention to how critic we are about ourselves. If you're scratching your head now, you can test your self-compassion level on Kristin's website. Look how coherent are the criteria:

• Self-Kindness
• Self-Judgement
• Common Humanity
• Isolation
• Mindfulness
• Over-Identification
• Overall Score

After having a first "self-criticism x-ray" I suggest you take a look at her website, where you'll find lots of information on how to start treating yourself better (and others by consequence). Then we can all read her book and put this beautiful thinking in practice.


Don't you think we could make good use of this self-compassion thing in our writing as well?

I'm Back!, NaNoWrimo, Apologies and Thank You's

Picture Credits

Hello my dear virtual friends! I'm finally back, I've missed you and I have a question for you. 


"Uh, you're dumping all that at once?" you ask.  


Err, that's part of my coming back, so please bear with me: have you ever been without internet for almost a month? Has your library a limitation for long web addresses that prevents you from posting and visiting your friends' blogs? 

Picture Credits

Ops, that was more than one question, heh. You know what's the weirdest thing about the isolation? It's when you come back. You'd think I'd be staying online all day, catching up with all the friends I miss so much.



Oh, no. 


The fact is that after all this time, when one's life is turning upside down, apparently upwards, and then downwards again, one can lose one's grip on things. So one decides that isolation is a good thing for a while, to reassess decisions and goals etc. But when inside one's shell, one forgets that there are people out that who care about her, and that one's absence worries them.

Picture Credits

This is the moment I apologize. I'm sorry I haven't replied the awesome comments left in my absence, and I'm sorry I've worried some of you. On the other hand, I felt so very loved with your emails and DMs checking up on me! Thank you, I heart you all. :D 


On another matter, this post's headline mentions NaNoWrimo... Ahem, with all these twists and turns I couldn't keep up with the challenge, so this year's NaNo project flunked. But know that I'm doing it again next year. There's no quitter here, no sir! heh

Picture Credits

The NaNo failure made me think about what does it mean to be a writer. Instead of reproducing all the speech I had written, I believe the image above synthesizes my conclusions. 

This picture has nothing to do with
this post. I just like it and wanted
to put it somewhere. Please ignore me
and keep reading.
Picture Credit

Am I out? Hum, no. But I will have to slow down for a while, at least until life gets less dizzy. This means that Randomities will return to its original concept, that is, being erratic. So, the trolls are still on, as well all the weird stuff I make you put up with, but I'm allowing myself not getting concerned about posting frequency, traffic, stats, and all. I hope that in the mean time you'll keep an eye on us - me and Randomities - until I put life back on track. 


Thank you all for reading! I'm off to reply some long due emails now, of the people from whom I deserve a good kick in the soft parts, heh. ;) 

Interview with Johanna Harness at the Writer's Digest

Johanna Harness it the genius behind the #amwriting community on Twitter. I spotted an exchange of tweets that lead to her interview at Jeanne Friedman's blog on Writer's Digest's website -- There Are No Rules -- and I thought a simple tweet wasn't enough to share this insightful interview. I had to spread the word here at Randomities too.

She talks about the #amwriting community, about writing, marketing, the reasons why she chose the traditional path to publishing instead of other alternatives. There's much more, of course, but I won't spoil it to you.

Click HERE to read it and tell me what you think. It's worth a blog post, isn't it? ;)

Edited to add: I was one of the happy recipients of her cool buttons giveaway this July. Check them out. :)

Breathe

I had promised another installment of the zombie dragon story for this week, but, but... It doesn't matter does it? heh ;P

So, I wrote this a few days ago, which I thought I'd share with you although it doesn't really qualify as #FridayFlash. But there you go; I hope you'll like it. :)

Breathe

I'm walking on a large road with no room for pedestrians. I'm going from one appointment to another and I have plenty of time. I'm hungry. I'm eager to sink my teeth into the half-eaten sandwich I'm carrying in my purse.

My strides are calm yet determined. I spot this:

I had seen this small path before, walking on the same road. I've wanted to explore it although it looked too much like the entry to a private property. Today I dare going in. It might have been the pending flowers that made it look like the door to another world, or it was the sun inviting me to rest under the trees tops. It doesn't matter.

I look back to see if someone sees me and I stroll in. I'm welcomed by chipping birds, a kind breeze and white butterflies.

As I advance I'm more and more certain that I'm trespassing. I ignore the knot on my stomach and look at the shades of green of the tree leaves above my head; I smell the humidity of the earth below my feet; I hear the cracking sound of the fallen branches at my every step.

I hear a rumbling sound that does not come from my belly. Shortly after I see a construction between the tree trunks; there's no doubt anymore.

I turn to go away. Nature invites me to stay for a while longer, so I leave the rough road embracing the woods, feeling that the birds will hide and protect me from the owner's wrath. I'm wearing red under a black coat.

I give my back to the house and the noise and sit on a tree stump. I eat my sandwich, leaving the crumbs in appreciation of the bird's greeting. The sun thanks me with a warm beam, illuminating every one of us.

I breathe in the moment and go. The butterflies salute me in my way back.

*

I'm writing this in a charming town, drinking a good caffè macchiato. I pause every once in a while to gaze at the passing people, the buildings and into nothing.

The sun has hidden behind the clouds, providing a cool afternoon. My red scarf protects me from the mountain air and the coffee heats me from the inside. Life is good right now.

Note: These pics were taken by yours truly with her crappy cell phone camera. Please forgive their bad quality, although I've tagged this post as "pretty things". It's the essence that is pretty, not the form. ;)

Guest Post: Olive O'Brien - Writing for Kids

I often wondered how would it be to write for this audience. It sounds really interesting and challenging. However, since I know absolutely zip about it, I've invited the author of no less than two picture books -- Perry the Playful Polar Bear and Perry the Polar Bear Goes Green -- to explain things a bit.

Please meet Randomities' first honorable guest, Olive O'Brien. :)

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Olive O'Brien is a children’s writer based in Cork, Ireland. You can find out more about her at Silver Angel Publishing or at her blogs, where she spends most of her time, at Write Olive and Movie News First.

*

If you’re like me and thought one day, I’d like to write a children’s book, it’s important to look at the differences between writing for adults and writing for children.

First, I guess it’s important to remember that children are intelligent creatures! One of the more common mistakes that children’s writers make is they think that they can throw a story at a young reader and expect them to like it.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Trust me, I’ve learned that lesson. So, in that sense, writing for children isn’t a whole lot different than writing for adults.

You still have a main character with whom readers can identify with. And you have a plot which faces that character with a situation, which he or she will have to struggle to resolve.

But, there are other significant differences between writing for children and writing for adults.

1. One of the things I love about children’s writing is that the characters can be as crazy and as fantastical as you want them to be. For example, animals who talk, sing, dance and do everything that humans do, is a fairly common occurrence in children’s books. And it’s such fun!

2. Most children’s books are pretty short. I’m not talking about teen fiction, which can often run to hundreds of pages in small print or indeed middle-grade fiction. I’m a picture-book author and most stories in that genre do not run over 1,500 words. But, sometimes it’s harder than it seems to try and write and condense a story down to 1,000 words, which is the average picture-book length.

3. Many books for adults involve long descriptive passages. Try this in a kid’s book and they will quickly tire of the “padding.” For picture-books in particular, sentences need to be short, easy to understand and you also have to bear in mind that each page will be accompanied by an illustration.

4. If you don’t grab a child’s attention within the first paragraph, you can forget about it. I’m sure we all have ploughed through a book or two, in the hope that it will somehow grab our imagination halfway through. This isn’t the case with children. The very first sentence must capture young readers immediately.

5. Children’s stories usually end on a positive note. There are books and poetry out there that have dark themes, however most end on an encouraging message which gives children hope.

6. Children like to read stories about characters and themes that they can relate to. As a children’s writer, you need to focus on themes that children often experience in everyday life, such as being afraid of the dark, adjusting to the arrival of a new sibling, their first day at school or moving home.

7. Children love heroes! When you look at many popular children’s books, they involve characters saving the day, the world even.

8. Most children’s books involve child characters or animals. Books with characters based on inanimate objects aren’t as successful. There are some quirky exceptions though.

Overall, writing for children is so enjoyable and entertaining and you can allow your mind to wander to some amazing places. But maybe some day I’ll start writing again for “big people.”

Jealous? Hell, yeah!

These days I came across a piece from a fellow writer that astounded me. I'm afraid I can't tell whether its fiction or non fiction, prose or poetry, but suffice to say that I felt jealous of the quality therein.

I had never felt like this before. I thought I'd never feel this way. I thought myself above these "petty" feelings, and then BANG!

I hate when this happens. However, this is one of those opportunities I grab with both hands.

"Have you noticed that you often contradict yourself? This is getting annoying," you say.

Heh, indeed. Why would someone hold to a supposedly bad feeling?

Well, it's not to the feeling that I cling to, mind, it's to discovering a new aspect of myself.

Right, I know this is not a pleasant one, but although I dabble with fantasy and science fiction in my writing, when it comes to real life I'm very realistic. It doesn't mean that I know immediately how to deal with it, though. So I thought that by asking others how they coped with it I might not feel so bad about myself and move on to working and improving my own stuff. ;)

So, would you help me out on this? Have you ever felt jealous of someone else's work? If yes, how did you manage it?

Note: I meant to leave this post dry of pictures, but then I came across the painting "Jealous Zebras" and I couldn't resist putting here. Too darn fitting! heh

Edited to add: The artist who created this fabulous painting is Eira Fogelberg. Thanks to @virtualDavis for sharing this information and linking back here. :) You can visit his Posterous blog if you like. It's has much in common with Randomities, heh.

Writing Schedule: How To Create and Manage Yours

Note: This time I'm inverting the order, so instead of babbling about my personal experience in the beginning, I'm showing you the good stuff first. Then I get to babble, heh.

So, when thinking about a writing schedule, first and foremost we should ask ourselves:

Why Having a Writing Schedule, And Why Not Having One?

What's the use of a writing schedule? Well, the obvious objective is organization.

"Why would I want to be organized? I'm a creative person, I have a naturally chaotic mind," you say.

Well, when we organize ourselves we're less susceptible to distractions, we tend to focus on the task ahead, increasing our productivity and allowing us to do more in less time.

Besides, there's the sense of accomplishment when finishing an assignment or a deadline -- without hair pulling and churning stomaches, that is.

"Ok, you've convinced me. What do I have to do?"

Oh, wait, before rushing into making yourself a schedule, you should consider if it's a good thing for you at all.

"Now you're contradicting yourself!" you say, frowning.

Yeah, in a way I am... You see, there are people who don't feel comfortable with assignments, even if they were the ones to assign the tasks!

I, for instance, like organization, but I always thought that a writing schedule would stifle my creativity, that I'd feel imprisoned. Incredibly enough, setting up and following a writing schedule felt liberating.

"How?" you ask.

Well, I made myself a flexible schedule. Stick around for a while and you'll learn how make a writing schedule that works for you. :)

Weekly Schedule

"Why make a weekly schedule? It takes several months to write a book!"

True, but months are composed of days and weeks, and by breaking a month into smaller periods of time you'll be able to manage your time better.

So, the weekly schedule would be good to help you setting aside some time for your writing activities...

• writing (duh), editing;
  

• researching;

• submitting finished stuff;

• networking, which includes blogging (writing your posts, reading other people's posts, and commenting), visiting friends on facebook, linkedin and other social network sites like twitter, etc;

• marketing, which comprises some of the above plus participating on conventions and other events, organizing physical marketing material, etc.

... in a way that will not compromise your daily life; you know, those mundane activities:

• cleaning up;

• taking the kids to and from school;

• walking the dog;

• breathing;

• working on not losing your day job, etc.

So, how do you do it?

Well, start with making two lists, much like the ones above: one for the writing activities, and another for the mundane activities.

Now put them together in a time table more or less like this:

	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
early morning
morning
afternoon
night
late night
obs: *

* "obs" stands for observations.

"But how exactly do I do it?" you ask me, "You gave me a blank template!"

Yes I did. You see, each person should create a schedule that fits better her necessities. That's why I called it a flexible schedule. But I understand why you feel lost, so here's how I mixed my writing and mundane activities in a table like the one above.

I'm much more productive at night, so instead of opening a line for early mornings, I left only line one for the whole morning, which activity was 'ZzzzzZzz'. (yes, sleeping, heh)

So, for the afternoons I've set time for the mundane activities, like cleaning the house, walking the dogs, etc. This was my personal choice, because the afternoons are the less productive periods of the day for me, so that's when I do things that don't demand mental effort.

I've also prepared myself to have teaching sessions in the afternoons and early nights. (Yup, in case you're wondering, teaching languages is my so-called day job.)

As the sun sets, this night owl's brain starts to wake up. So, the nights and late nights are the crucial part of my schedule, where I've put my writing activities and planning lessons.

Inspired by Kathleen Duey's example (aka @kdueykduey), who shared a simplified version of her schedule on #LitChat, I've decided to set aside two nights to visit other people's blogs, leave comments, chat freely on twitter, and connect with people on social network sites. (She has a different program, in case you're wondering.)

I've chosen two twitter chats to participate in, on regular basis: #Litchat (M-W-F at 4pm EST) and #writechat (Sun at 3pm EST), which on my time zone are 10pm and 9pm respectively.

Also, Sunday is the day I've dedicated to preparing the week's lessons, besides the #writechat time.

All remaining time I've left to the writing activities, with one exception. My whole Saturday was meant to be a resting day.

"Are you insane? Do nothing for a whole day? I could never do that!"

Well, if you don't mind me saying, maybe you should. It's very important to rest your mind and body for a whole day (a weekend would be even better), as you'll be able to resume your crazy routine with a refreshed and relaxed mind. Your productivity will increase significantly, I assure you! :)

Now, it's obvious that for a writer an important "writing" activity is reading. So, you can kill two rabbits at once by reading something useful for your work in your resting day. ;)

But I'd warn you against reading things that are not meant to give a kick at your inspiration. That is, if you have to take notes, read with critical eyes etc, it'd be better allocating this activity on a normal working day.

Finally, you may have noticed that I've created an "obs" line, for observations. I've chosen two days of the week in which I'd forbidden myself having any contact with social networking sites. Since the most distracting of them all is naturally twitter, where I've met so many good friends, on Tuesdays and Thursdays I've put a big "No Twitter" on my writing schedule, just in case I got tempted to say hi, heh.

To summarize, my (nocturne) writing schedule would be like this: 1 x 2 x3 (preparing lessons, networking, writing, respectively), besides the free day.

Monthly and Yearly Schedules

Now that you have your daily routine organized, it's time to decide what you're going to do with your writing time.

This is the moment you'll evaluate all your projects, ongoing and future, and determine which is/are your main focus.

For that, you'll need reflect upon an important skill:

Prioritizing

Riight, we all get to snort now. (if you haven't yet, that is, heh)

If you're published, or are about to be, the first thing to consider is your deadlines.

Now, if you're a freelance writer, you probably have many assignments, so I'd suggest you make a list of them before considering the ideas below to prioritize them: (in no particular order)

• Which projects you're most fond of, and thus you feel more like writing at the moment?

• Of those, which do you think would be more viable commercially? (if that's something you ever consider in regard of your writing, that is)

• If time is an issue (as it usually is), which project will take less effort to finish?

So, if you put the deadlines, your mood, your view of the market, and the effort factor in a big bowl, mix and cook them in wood fire (like the old witches did) you'll have an almost instant writing schedule, with priorities set an all, heh.

So, why don't you tell me, do you have a writing schedule already? How did you set it up? Are you finding easy follow it, or hard? Did you find this post useful? Do you have doubts about my suggestions? You have something to add maybe? Go ahead, ask away or share your thoughts on the comments! :)

Final note: Here's where I found all the pictures used in this post: messy desk, neat desk, writing, breathing (I recommend reading the article that comes with the picture), sticky guy.