Types of Writers and their Technology

by Carrie Bailey

Like Homo Erectus, one of our ancient ancestors, writers use different tools to get the job done. Whereas we might have found Grog, the inventor of the sharpened rock, sifting through the quarry for just the right shade and shape to kill his next meal, the writer has been buried in an avalanche of technology to designed to aid them.

Oh yes. Grog had it easy. Maybe he woke up in the morning and asked, “Grog go to quarry A or quarry B?” Although, it probably sounded a lot more like, “Hurmph?” Now, I can allow that it was a difficult choice for our common ancestor, but Grog might have decided to stay in bed if the choice were to buy online or from the umpteen stores all precisely the same distance away.

By the way, pens are always on sale in store A when pencils are on sale in store B. Don’t try to escape that fact by ordering online, because there exists only one truth about mail order: the cost of shipping and handling rises in direct proportion to the sale on the item. That’s why it’s called “handling,” because we can’t handle selling it for any less. I know this absolute truth because I sell stationary on Ebay.

This technology overload has resulted in the following types of writers in existence today.

The iAuthor

He actually has a USB port under the removable pad in his thumb. Currently, he and all his counterparts do still run on Java. Often found clicking away at his laptop in upscale coffee shops, he ceases writing at five-minute intervals to answer his phone, update his online calendar, locate a previous draft on his external hard drive, update his software . . .

Some of us envy this writer, because he oozes professionalism whenever he isn’t under the table untangling his cables.

His secret: he can’t spell without spell check.

The Journalista

She uses a computer, but it’s her magnificent personal library of self-published work that defines her. When you go to the office store for three ring binders and find bare shelves starring back at you, you can be certain she was there first. Clever bumper stickers, which she’d never publically display on her car, adorn her printer as it is the central piece of her publishing empire.

She maintains total control of all her work free from criticism from conception to consumption.

Her secret: she’s never actually let anyone else read it.

Those Fashionably Late

Ah yes. Quills are out, didn’t you know? They don’t. They’ve got ancient typewriters and they know where to get them repaired, too. Some of them even maintain printing presses in their sheds, but worse: they use them. Right now, someone on your street owns and operates a Comadore 64. Its blinding blue screen and glowing radioactive font evoke all the memories of the great writers of the 1980s.  Great Comadore 64 wallpaper click: here.

If you’ve ever truly loved an author’s work, you couldn’t help but wonder where they sat as they wrote each letter and what impliments they used to accomplish the task.

Their secret: the iAuthor intimidates them.


The Penamilist

Pencil.
Paper.
Back to basics.
Words.

Their secret: they’re married/closely related to the iAuthor.

The Escape Writer

You’re in the woods/coast/on a mountain. Your heavy eyelids droop slowly as the natural wonder around you rustles and creaks a soothing lullaby though it’s midday and you’ve just arrived. Then for the first time in what feels like months, maybe your lifetime even, you inhale deeply-without the instruction of your yoga master-and… the Windows theme sound reverberates as your neighbor opens her laptop. Within seconds, it’s clickity-clickity-clickity-clack-clack as the bluish glow from the screen brings light pollution to somewhere you thought sacred.

You hate her, but only because you hadn’t planned on bringing out your laptop for at least another half hour.

Your and her secret: you aren’t running away from stress or to inspiration. You just drink too many caffeinated beverages.

Trust me. A walk in the wilderness near my house won’t fix that and pick up your trash before you go.

Homo Erectus didn’t have written words apparently. Our earlier Homo Sapien ancestors lived without them, too. Now if you hold that the world existed for only the last 6000 years-as do most of the people who live where only The Escape Writer visits-still, a great deal of time passed before the first early words were pressed into clay.

No right way to write exists. A writer uses what is available, affordable, and what he or she knows how to use. However, before you start pitying our fictionally distinguished inventor of the sharpened stone, Grog, I want you to consider this:

After Grog invented the sharpened stone, he ran home to his clan and shouts, “Hrmmph Uh HUH Gromph Uggh Grr Humph.” For the next twenty years of his life, he retold that same story to generation after generation while seated around the fire.

Writers are first and foremost storytellers, however they choose to accomplish their task.

The Creative Life and Mental Health

by Carrie Bailey

Whether you embrace that fine line between genius and insanity and sling it over your shoulder to wear as proudly as a sash or flee in terror at the slightest hint of social stigma, duck under the nearest chair, and chant, “It’s all in your head, [your name here]” you can’t avoid a certain truth:

Many great authors needed therapy. 

We may disagree on which peevish penman in specific or what sort of assistance might have brought them into the exclusive club of “normal” creative types, but just a few minutes lecture by any dreary professor on Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, or J.R.R. Tolkien’s personal background reveals the raging internal struggle of what is often termed the "artistic temperament."

Did I say Tolkien?  Yes.  Carroll’s obvious drug references and Wilde’s preference for catamites-great vocabulary word by the way-make their mental plights obvious, but Tolkien, the professor, doesn’t seem pegged for psychotherapy.  If you think along this vein, I would tend to agree, but Tolkien, the former solider who was moderately obsessed with death and evil and war might have suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Truthfully, I have no facts on the matter and this is one rare occasion I don’t plan on doing the research, because I’m just using it to illustrate a point.

My firm belief is that mental health must be valued over creativity.  During college, I had a professor whose bipolar girlfriend refused to take her medication because she was incredibly productive during her mania phases.  Personally, I was horrified.  Great writing may change the world, but that can’t happen if the writer engages in reckless behavior and winds up brilliantly splattered on the street or living out a suicide scene instead of writing one.  So, I’ve adopted this belief:

 Many people may need treatment to become great authors.

No matter where you may be in your creative life, mental health needs to be a priority.  So, how do you know when your particular style of genius has crossed the line?  The truth is that you don’t.  In fact, if you knew, it wouldn’t be happening, but there are some indicators. 

Drug Abuse/Addiction

Your inspiration has started to come from a bottle, a powder, or comes and goes in a puff of smoke.  As a long-term caffeine junkie-thank goodness my poison is legal-I can promise you that you are the author of your work, not any substance you take.  It’s true that you might find yourself writing for a different audience if you were using heroin everyday and suddenly stopped.  Wait! Let me preface that, if you were using heroin everyday, you sought help from a drug treatment clinic and stopped with the assistance of the proper medical health professionals who could ensure your withdrawal symptoms weren’t fatal...  Yes, your audience will change.  It’s no mystery why William S. Burroughs attracts the needle crowd, but I promise you that you’ll find some clean people to be your worthy readers, too.          

Unhealthy/Toxic Relationships

Another indicator could be the drama of abusive relationships.  I’m not talking about isolated incidents, but rather a pattern, which prevents a creative person from being able to maintain the professional relationships necessary to make a career from their labor.  Take into consideration that everyone ought to have a healthy balance of give and take.  I like the word reciprocity for this.  An aspiring author cannot write if their relationships prevent them either by consuming too much of their time or sending them cascading from one emotional explosion into the another pool of despair and fear.

If your loved one tells you that you cannot write rather than offer constructive criticism, that might just be the tip of the iceberg.  Heed this warning and steer clear.  You may not be able to change anyone around you, but I urge you to consider that although Tolkien may have began his work on the battlefield, it wouldn’t have reached us, if he hadn’t made it off.

Too Messy/Too Sterile  

Also don't forget to consider that your plethora of unfinished projects, disorganized attempts at managing a career from a mountain of-well you don't even know what is under the first layer-might just be a raging case of adult ADHD/ADD.  That disorganized trash heap you've been referring to as your "work station" reflects what goes on inside.  It might be what stands between you and your readers, not just between you and the first draft of that novel you can't finish.

internet, stacks of newspaper on more than 30% of your floor space only creates a fire hazard.

On the flip side, if you chased a friend out of your kitchen for touching your magazine photo shoot ready kitchen counter and she never accepted an invitation to another dinner party, you've got to face facts...  You probably can't even start preparing a story, because it is never good enough.  There's no gold star for the type of perfectionism, which saddles you with chronic writer's block.

If you're in doubt, ask the opinion of others.  Get a first, second, up to fifteenth opinions and trust them.  If you get fifteen terrified friends avoiding a yes, no, or maybe answer, that would be a big yes whereas if you don't have the courage to ask, it's possibly worth fifteen yeses, too. 

You Fought the Law and the Law Won

Another more obvious indicator that you may be in need of help is legal trouble.  Maybe you didn’t want to wear orange pajamas and take an extended stay in a steel bar hotel, but you weren’t able to avoid it either, were you?  I do agree that many laws are in fact the product of a corrupt fascist imperialistic impersonal oppressive system that stripes the wealth off the backs of its rightful owners and concentrates it in the hands of greedy tyrants, but…  you don’t have to lose your liberty for it.  Now, if you choose to engage in non-violent civil disobedience that has been organized as part of a social movement, a jail sentence might be an unfortunate sacrifice made along the way.  This differs greatly from loss of freedom as a result of a one to twenty-something man operation to acquire something not currently considered by the law to be in your possession or to make someone do something that they’ve been pretty clear they won’t do without a court order.  We've all got to play by the same rules for this human community to be fair, so if you don't like them, get involved in making a real change and respect those around you until that time comes.

You Live in a Van Down by the River

A final and clear indicator that help may be needed is that you live in poverty.  I don’t mean the poverty described by a bank account or federal standards for income.  I mean the deeper poverty that comes from deteriorating physical health and social support.  A lack of money pales in comparison to the true horror that exists when our physical health has been neglected, our loved ones are distanced from being able to give aid, and our suffering has no name.  No one can cope with chronic illness alone.  Enlist the aid of those around you and arm yourself with a diagnosis.  You need health care for your body as well as your mind (they're attached).

Make no excuses for any situation that you may find yourself in.  If you are afraid to talk about it, then it's a problem, which is a barrier to your creative work and not the source of genius.  Many truly creative individuals have survived and recovered from great difficulties and hardships while others haven’t.   It is my opinion that you don’t have to lower your standards of mental health to be one of these amazing creative geniuses.  Likewise, anyone can be a writer with the right training and the right support.  So, if you need it, get the help you deserve.

Don't let mental health issues stand between you and your writing career.   

                     

Total Eclipse of the Mind

by nm boliek

Usually I wake up in the middle of a story playing out in my mind.  I sit up very slowly and attempt the Zen Method of Story Capture or ZMSC for short. I'm sure you're familiar with this method but you probably know it by another name, sometimes it’s called the "Oh @*%#*!@# Method." No, not familiar? Well, let me acquaint you with this quiet but very effective secret to achieving total Creative Insanity.

ZMSC is usually performed while waking from sleep but BEFORE you are fully awake, best results are achieved if no one speaks while you talk quietly to yourself and you completely ignore the dire need to urinate. Here’s a hint:  Do not even attempt to walk to the bathroom - for some weird reason, I have yet to understand, the trip to the bathroom seems to cause the story to vanish into thin air. The summer I dreamed up my novel I wore adult diapers everyday – right up until I had enough story to go it on my own. That should tell you how important it is to not ripple the water, any water.

Now, as you practice this method, you must also try not to focus on the story. Totally ignore the story.  The best explanation I can offer for why you must ignore the story is to point back to another experience I had with my novel:  Somewhere around late May I woke to the pivotal moment in my action scene.  As it played out I carefully adhered to the ZMSC rules- I pretended to be thinking about the laundry… I sorted the lights and the darks….. Remarked to myself about the various types of stains white shirts seem to collect ……and I totally ignored my need to urinate. All of this while passively listening to my main character say his goodbyes to………………. ? “Who? WHO? Who is he speaking to !!!!. I can't see , there’s  a SHADOW!!!!” of course I accidentally yelled these demands out loud to the KESM. And it happened in a flash - the whole scene vanished.  The Keepers of Ethereal Story Matter (KESM) are not to be toyed with. IGNORE THE STORY or perish along side it. Its a tough lesson.

A word about the KESM, because I'm sure you're mumbling “this person is a nutcase” and you're right I am. I won't argue that but that’s beside the point at this point.  The point here is that there are invisible but very real gatekeepers to the Land of Stories. And they take their jobs very very seriously. The Keepers of Ethereal Story Matter - or KESM for short, are the worst of the lot. They allow no human voice to be heard during their pre-dawn screenings. Their punishments are cruel and permanent.  It’s been a years since I made that fatal interruption, and I still have no idea who my main character was so painfully leaving behind. See? Crazy but imbued with massive wisdom.

Another variation of the ZMSC is the often attempted exercise of keeping a notebook on the nightstand. Supposedly so you can “capture”  sleepily scrawled snippets of brilliance for later use, don't bother it’s a worthless exercise. Again I reference my experiences with writing my novel, as the whole third chapter was written using this Sleeping Shorthand Method.  Someday, when I'm very famous and the drafts of my book are published, Aliens are going to be amazed that I was able to so accurately pen an entire chapter in their native language - without ever having set foot in an Alien Academy. I have no idea what happened in that chapter but two of my characters didn't make it into the fourth chapter.  No matter, I carried on without them, thinking eventually I'd stumble across an Alien Language Translator but there has been no such luck.  Let me add that if this method works for you please continue and know that you are among the rarest of writers.  Deep Space Dual Language Translators of the Sleeping Shorthand Method will be much in demand one day. You are ahead of your time, light years ahead.

ZMSC is also a valuable tool for any writer that has trouble threatening or cajoling uncooperative characters into meaningful storylines. But it’s not for the weak or the lazy, as you can see from the few examples I have provided. It requires passive but active awareness at a time of day most sane people find ungodly.  I recommend gradual participation until the voices in your head become clear and impossible to ignore. By the time you feel compelled to eavesdrop on yourself the rules of ZMSC will have begun to make sense in some nonsensical way; this is normal. So is speaking in tongues when your editor calls to inquire about your alternate language submissions. Its simply a temporary side effect of listening to the voices in your head too much. When it happens just hang up. When he calls back pretend you just got out of the shower, claiming no knowledge of the previous phone call.  This has been my modus operandi for years – Now my editor will only speak to me by email.

So there you have it, a tried and proven method for Creative Insanity.  Of course this is really just the tip of the Creative Subconscious Vortex. What lurks even deeper is the Brilliant Scrawling Beast, a mythical writer type that publishes with minimal editor or psychiatric intervention. But that will need to wait for next month; maybe my roommate will have dropped the charges by then.