Confessions of a Premise Writer

by Rob Hines

That’s me. I’m a Premise Writer.

It sounds like a real job, doesn't it? Premise Writer. It almost sounds like you could make money doing that.

Nope. Not even remotely.

Trust me. Being broke does NOT look this good.

Premise writing is what I've been doing since I decided to start writing fiction, and I've only recently come to grips with this label. It’s a sickness, kind of like rabies, I think. You can cure it, but it takes some gnarly treatment and you should probably avoid people for a month or so.

Are you a premise writer? Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do you have a billion ideas written in piles of spiral notebooks and/or an incredibly cluttered note-taking app on your phone?
2. Have you written any more than about a page or two of any one idea?
3. Do you waste time at work organizing your ideas in fun Google Drive folders instead of actually turning them into thought-out stories?
4. When you do write a story, do you tend to jump right to the “million dollar idea” and linger there for a while before jumping right to the end?
5. Have you had a story about a problem gambler who acquires a golden touch rejected because an editor feels “it all comes too easily” meaning the premise happens with no real conflict or consequences?

Okay, that last one is pretty much exclusive to me, but if you feel any sympathy pains for the other four, you may be a Premise Writer too. Hope is not lost, though. You and I can break from a fate of being buried in an avalanche of hoarded notebooks full of neglected concepts. The key is (cue dramatic music) OUTLINING!

Yep, there they go. The artists are leaving now. The ones who want their writing to be an expression of their inner beings have given up on me.

Okay, the rest of you? You’re professional writers. You’re the ones who know you have to plan a project to achieve consistent results (read: get paid to write)

I’m not dissing anyone who doesn't plan their writing. Hell, until about a week or two ago, I WAS one of those people. At least, I was that way in my fiction writing. My revelation came when I realized that I’m more than just a fiction writer. I’m a corporate writer too. I write copy for advertising, corporate blog articles, web copy, and even a corporate comic book! And you wanna hear a secret? I plan each of those projects before I write them. Why? Because I like to eat horrible food and my paycheck allows me to continue buying said horrible food. If I'm that committed to horrible food, why shouldn't I be just as committed to fulfilling my writing dream?

My cubicle-mate at the above-referenced day job is also a writer and he has published two non-fiction books (if you’re a baseball fan, you can buy one of them here). He’s a relentless planner when he writes and I guess I thought there were different rules for non-fiction. There aren't. Well, except for the whole factual thing.

No matter what you write, the best way to make writing more efficient and less torturous is to effectively outline your plot and your characters. I’m not talking about the high school research paper method with Roman numerals and A’s and B’s and all that. All I’m suggesting is you know what’s going to happen from start to finish as well as the major events in between. It may be a bulleted list. It may be a detailed list of acts and scenes. It may even be a mind map that starts with a central theme and bursts in all different directions. The key is putting your whole story on the page before you try to write 100,000 words around it.

I’m not saying it’s for everyone. I know many great writers just sit and write. Good for them. I’m a Premise Writer. If I do that, I will do a fantastic job of writing down a plot with terribly boring characters and little to no exposition or resolution. In other words, I will suck.

So now I’m outlining. I’m giving myself a chance to hear the story from start to finish and understand my characters so I have a blueprint to guide my actual writing. I’m giving myself a chance to not suck.

Words to live (and write) by

Well, at least not suck as much.

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A day in the life of a writer

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by Kelly DeBie

This month, we are supposed to be sharing our writing routines and habits with you all.  As a blogger with four kids, I absolutely have to have structure to my day in order to get anything done, let alone sit down and have uninterrupted time to write.

As I write this now, I am sitting alone in the living room after having sent off my youngest daughter to summer school. All the rest of the kids are still asleep, as has become the norm around here this summer. They sleep in, I peck away at the keyboard. It works, and I'm not asking any questions right now.

I thought I might share with you today how being a writer works, at least in my universe, on any given day. I'll have to warn you though, I very much have adult ADD and get distracted easily. Try and keep up.

3:30 a.m. - Wake up. Stare at the ceiling for a good long time. Struggle to go back to sleep because mind is racing so much. Tell self that you will write down that wicked plot summary that you just dreamt of when you get up in the morning. Yawn. 

4:30 a.m. - Repeat. Forget whatever awesome story you thought up an hour ago.

6:45 a.m. - Alarm goes off, hit snooze button every five minutes for at least half an hour.

7:15 a.m. - Hook up coffee IV.  Do dishes. Check dryer. Make mental note of the day of the week, what you have to write about, and whether anything is started yet.

Good morning, beautiful.

7:45 a.m. - Feed small humans, attend to their needs, shuttle them to and fro. Refill coffee.

9:30 a.m. - Take a deep breath and open the laptop. Check Facebook page, write some witty status update, send daily birthday wishes, open Blogger, check for comments, start new post. Stare at blank screen. Refill coffee.

10:00 a.m. - Depending on which day of the week it is, I'm either researching things, writing, ranting, creating a million hyperlinks or still staring at a blank screen. Tuesday is my designated rant day, appropriately titled Things That Piss Me Off Tuesday. Thursday is Nerdsday, where I write about something geeky I love. Fridays are for fiction when that group is going, which is on a summer sabbatical right now. I intended to run my Wonder(ful) Women series on Fridays instead, but got distracted by something shiny last week, so it ran Monday instead. 

10:30 a.m. - peck, peck, peck, peck. Finish pot of cold coffee. Think of something totally unrelated, but profound to write about later, add that to running topic list. Start three different posts before finishing the one you are supposed to be writing. Add a few paragraphs to current book chapter.

11:00 a.m. - Post for the day is usually published by now unless something else came up in the meantime. Which it usually does. Find news articles to write about, add to running topic list. Squirrel!

11:30 a.m. - Schedule status updates on Facebook for the rest of the day, share post, log off. Remember something, log back on. Shiny! Log off. See something on news, text it to self.

12:00 p.m. - Feed small humans, attend to needs, shuttle to and fro. Witness something insane, write about it on napkin in car.

1:00 p.m. - Read for an hour with the kids. Right now, we are doing a 12 week summer reading challenge, where we read the book first, then watch the movie version when we are done. This week, we are on To Kill A Mockingbird. Geek out for a while over reading favorite book, talk about notions of justice and inequality with oldest child who's eyes start to glaze over eventually. 

2:00 p.m. - Sit on youngest until he naps. (not literally, of course) Enjoy the fact that he still snuggles up in lap and falls asleep there, make sure phone is within arms reach. Check for comments, write witty status update, find news story, add it to running topic list. How did writers function before mobile apps? I'm imagining lots of napkins.

4:00 p.m. - Watch news. Yell and throw things. Scribble notes down on whatever paper is nearby with whatever writing instrument is available. It's usually an envelope and a crayon, by the way, and almost always gets lost, spilled on or thrown away before you can get back to it.

6:00 p.m. - Make dinner, do laundry, do dishes, wrangle small humans, think of some parenting issue to write about, forget it immediately, yell randomly out the window about putting pants on to at least one child.

7:00 p.m. - Sit on porch and read while kids play outside. Congratulate self on surviving another day of motherhood. Think of something witty to say, realize phone battery is dead. Forget whatever it was.

9:30 p.m. - Kids to bed. Check for comments. Get into some argument with a troll online. Give up and walk away. Add "troll fighting" to running topic list.

10:30 p.m. - Get ready for bed. Think of something great to write about. Send self a text or email.

11:54 p.m. - Actually fall asleep. Dream of plot line that you'll forget in a few hours. Repeat.

Sounds pretty glamorous, right?

Passion, Puke, and Priorities

by Rob Hines

So… yeah.

I’m late with my article this month. Really late. Like “oh crap, is she pregnant?” late.

But I have a really good excuse.

Um.

Hold on, I know it’s around here somewhere.

Ah, screw it. I just flat-out didn't do it.

Sure, my kid was sick, but it’s 2013. EVERYBODY’S kid is sick. That doesn't work anymore. We had some major home projects to work on, but my wife is a high school teacher so she knows all about due dates, and she doesn't let me miss deadlines. I feel sorry for her students sometimes.

So what happened?

I happened.

This mess of a guy was trying to do a million things at once and decided the writing could wait. Ugh, it makes me nauseous just thinking about it. This passion, this hunger, this thing I want to do more than anything else was just pushed to the back burner for a few weeks while I did…other stuff.

And that’s okay. Yes, I feel sick when I think about the time wasted, but ultimately it’s just something that happened, and I have to recognize that even though it wasn't a very awesome choice, I can get back on track and leave my moment of weakness behind me.

When you’re pursuing a passion, you tend to make it an obsession that consumes your brain all day, every day. I think most of us are thinking about writing all the time, even when we’re not doing it. Especially when we’re not doing it. My mind actually shuts down a little when I’m finally sitting down to write. The words flow and I turn off my brain to avoid over-thinking the process. The mental torture doesn't start until I move on to something else and begin flagellating myself for neglecting the writing. So the answer is just write all the time, isn't it?

Nope. Not possible. I've got a boss that expects me to actually “do my job.” My son doesn't care about my passion. He just wants to play cars. And my wife would like to have her husband around once in a while. While I’m spinning all these plates, I’m secretly loathing myself for not being in front of a keyboard, and I do a lot of loathing.

Writing is a priority in my life, that’s not a question. The question is where it fits and when it fits. To truly bring writing back into the fold and make it stick, I have to make sure I establish an unbreakable commitment to the activity. I can’t have an excuse to let myself off the hook. I need a place where I can always write. I need a time when no one else can divide my attention. I know that place and time exist. I just have to find them.

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Habits are for nuns and other people

Hoo boy. I might not have the best advice regarding this topic. I guess that's okay, since Gayle already talked about her own difficulty with developing good habits. I don't have a pretty pink dress to spice up my post but all things considered, that's probably best for all concerned.

Moving on.

For starters, almost all of my habits are bad, and that doesn't just apply to writing. But since that's what we're here to talk about, as opposed to your judgment of me and my slovenly lifestyle and poor decision-making skills, I'll stick to that.

I don't have any writer habits and I think that's good. At least for me or somebody similarly wired. Believe me, I've read all the books that talk about establishing a comfortable environment and a consistent routine and I'm sure there's merit to that approach. For one, it instills discipline and there's certainly a benefit to that. I'm not discounting that advice. If it works for you, great. By all means, continue down that path and produce great works!

My problem is I think if I had to develop habits in order to write, I would be doomed to fail. See, my life is influenced to a great degree by an intricate network of part-time employment which prohibits me from making a lot of plans and committing to established routines. I work in the entertainment business and don't have one full-time job, I have several part-time and/or one-off gigs. I work on nights and weekends (some times), I answer my phone at all hours, I eat when I find food, I sleep when I can lay down and I write when I can get my hands on a keyboard or notebook. That sounds worse than it is; I'm comfortable with it and function just fine (although it does make maintaining personal relationships something of a challenge, but that's material for another web site). It just means that it's virtually impossible for me to say that I will sit down every day between 7:00 and 8:30 in the morning with a cup of hot coffee (Hello, Carrie!), no distractions and bang out X number of pages every day. I'm sure there are plenty of people in relatable situations. Maybe they have kids or some other factor that prohibits developing habits and following a routine. My point is, it would be very easy for people like us to throw up our hands and say, "oh well, I guess I just can't write today or almost any day ever", having a handy excuse to be defeated by circumstances we already know are beyond our control.

The alternative is to abandon the idea of developing habits in favor of doing the work. It means focusing on results instead of process. Worry more about getting it done rather than figuring how you're going to carve out the time and establish the environment necessary to sit down and get it done.

Now that I look at the words on the screen, I guess that actually qualifies as developing a habit.

Huh. Shows what I know.

By Clark Brooks

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Just a bunch of SELL-OUTS!

by Rob Hines

Yeah, I said it.

You're just a bunch of sell-outs.

Peevish Penman is Selling Out
on YouTube!

Carrie shared this idea in a recent podcast, which you can view on our YouTube channel. Just because I'm insulting you doesn't mean I can't promote our stuff.

But don't go there yet. Wait until I'm done calling you names.

By the way, Carrie was much nicer when she brought up the notion on the podcast. I, on the other hand, am choosing to paint with the broad brush. So there.

I really believe it's true, though. We writers are all resigned to sell out in at least one part of our lives in order to be "happy" and/or "successful." The life of an author requires a certain amount of fecal material that we're forced to plod through with a big smile because we're LIVING THE DREAM MAN!

No, you say? Well, you're wrong.

"But Rob, I love to write and I get to write everyday so everything is wonderful!"

Excuse me while I wait for the unicorns to finish flying out of your rectum.

Admit it. There's something you're forced to do on a regular basis that allows you to write, but you'd love to not have to deal with it.

Maybe it's marketing (personally, I dig that stuff, but some people don't). Maybe it's dealing with editors. Maybe it's that damn day job that is supporting your writing pursuits.

And maybe it's the writing itself. If you're being paid to write, you're producing for a specific market. This market is now your boss, and you're committed to writing for them, not for you. Sure, it's better than a life sentence in a cubicle, but you're still giving up a little bit of yourself when you put those words on the page. Congratulations, you're selling out.

Can't deal with that idea? Good, that's what the comment section is for. Just promise you'll read the rest of this first. I can't stand commenters who don't read an entire article.

For those who stayed (I like you), I'm not trying to dissuade an entire community of writers from pursuing their dreams. It's just a fact of this life that we all have to accept, and it may help you determine what your writing path is going to be. Currently, I'm a tremendous sell-out because I'm working a full-time job for the paycheck and benefits, freelancing as a voiceover artist for some extra cash, AND attempting to become a professional writer because I want to write. None of these pursuits are going to bring me intense personal happiness because I'm simply serving someone else in each case. However, I choose to sell out so I can satisfy the one part of my life that brings an endless amount of joy: my family. If I get to do some writing for myself on the side, then that's a bonus.

"Well, just quit your job and write from home."

Who are you and what planet kicked you out?

Sure, that's the romantic version of the story. The writer with a dream gives it all up and lives as a hermit to pursue a career, and yeah, that might have worked for me 15 years ago. But the dream didn't show up until a couple years after I bought a home, and just before my son was born.

Romance be damned! I have mouths to feed, so I'm going to sell out with a smile on my face. Besides, selling out lets me come home to this every day...

That's not fair. He's usually pretty happy.
I'm the one that's crying all the time.

If you don't like the idea of being a sell-out, that's fine. Just come up with a way to become a financially independent, million-selling author without giving up a little time or money in the interest of others. And once you figure that out, please share with the rest of us in the comments below, 'cause I got nothin'.

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Where To Start? How About The End?

by Rob Hines

When a recent BoingBoing.net article about Pixar’s Rules for Storytelling floated through the Peevish Penman Twittersphere, one rule in particular hit home especially as I've been thinking about springtime and New Beginnings:

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

The article also reminded me of a TED Talks presentation about storytelling delivered by Andrew Stanton, a Pixar writer who worked on mega-ultra-hits like Toy Story and Finding Nemo. In his speech, Stanton says very simply, “Storytelling is joke telling. It's knowing your punchline, your ending, knowing that everything you're saying, from the first sentence to the last, is leading to a singular goal, and ideally confirming some truth that deepens our understandings of who we are as human beings.”

Is that my time in that bag?

He’s right. Having a solid and well crafted ending will ensure that your entire story means something and your audience will be engaged throughout, just like telling a joke. We've all been the victim of a horrible joke teller who goes through a long, drawn-out set-up only to bomb at the end. Not only is everyone in the room suddenly uncomfortable, but you've all lost precious minutes of your lives. It’s thievery, I tell you! Well Writers, I hate to dump this on you, but we’re just as guilty of Grand Theft Time when we pull people into a story only to disappoint with a lackluster finish. Never fear! The brilliant minds at Pixar are guiding us to the answer. 

Start at The End.

Just as Andrew Stanton says, everything you write has to move you closer to a certain point, so why not start by establishing that destination? If I know I want my character to have a major cathartic moment at the end of my story, I can better determine who he or she is at the beginning. While I usually have no problem coming up with some basic traits of my characters (snarky, charming, naive, etc.), I often start writing them a bit wishy-washy because I’m too timid about where the characters may or may not go as the story proceeds. Long story short, I don’t have the cajones to push the envelope because I don’t have a clue where the story is going. By establishing where I want to see the character and/or situation end up, I can feel okay with getting a little crazy as I write.

A perfect example (and the one that’s imprinted in my brain now, thanks to my son) is Lightning McQueen from the Pixar movie Cars. If you haven’t seen this flick for a while, or ever, find it. It’s not bad. It’s not my favorite Pixar movie (see The Incredibles) but I've warmed to it after about a hundred viewings. In fact, watching the movie several times helped me see this strategy come to life.

Of course, I probably could have figured it out with just 3 or 4, but I think it really hit home after 89 or so.

Anyway, watch Cars a couple times start to finish, then skip ahead and just watch the last half-hour before going back to watch the beginning. You’ll see the vast difference between the brash, arrogant, and selfish Lighting McQueen in the opening scenes and the humble and considerate McQueen that has learned the value of friendship and teamwork.

Yeah, it’s hokey, but this is Disney we’re talking about. I’m sure your writing will be a bit more edgy and a little less “Barney and Friends.” Regardless, the lesson is still the same. Pixar could have been much more conservative in how they presented Lightning at the beginning of the movie, especially considering he’s the protagonist that the audience is supposed to adore. As we know, it’s hard to make your hero a jerk, but they knew where he was going. They knew he’d be making a dramatic shift that would bring the audience on board. This knowledge gave them the confidence to make Lightning a pretty distasteful dude for nearly all of the movie. He doesn't totally reveal his character change until just minutes before the film ends, when he helps the veteran racer cross the finish line, giving up fame and fortune in the process. Starting at the end has helped Pixar make movies that engage adults as much as our children, if not more, because they can present truly dynamic characters in a way we’re not used to seeing in traditional family movies. Billions of dollars in sales proves that it’s a solid storytelling device.

Convinced? If not, here’s another benefit to starting at the end. How many times have you started writing a story, only to get frustrated because you hit a wall and can’t figure out where it’s going?

1...2...3...4... Sorry, I was counting the times that’s happened to me, but I don’t have time to count them all so I’ll continue my thought.

If you’re able to write your ending first (even it needs to change later) you don’t have that burden hanging over your head later. You have a goal and you’re simply pushing closer to that ending with every page. Even writing this paragraph just made me feel better.

Feeling giddy yet? I know I am. When I think about the freedom of writing a story with an ending waiting for me, it makes me so much more excited about the writing process. As long as I keep moving closer to that destination, I can take fun and exciting risks along the way, and isn't that why we all love writing in the first place?

The End

(or is it the beginning?)

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February - Self Love Means Kicking Yourself Out

By Molly Field

The Peevish Penman prompt for February (really? I'm so sorry about all that alliteration -- I'm slaying myself over here ... ahhh, someone give me some air) is revolving  around:

Love. 

Come back!

I have chocolate!

I lied.


I ate it. It was good. Sorry. Here's the wrapper. Ghardelli.

Moving on, nothing to see here. Oh go on! What I just wrote above does NOT remind you of "This Is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams about the plums. That was a love note.  

♥ ♥ ♥

We are writing about Love and how we create and write in the face of it... whether that face be a marriage, a new relationship, or with our loved ones around.

Because I am elegant weird, I am going to write about it today in terms of how we show ourselves and our writing love in one simple step: break up with yourself. Show yourself the door and don't come back until you've had time to think about what this relationship with your book or your writing or your blog or your art means to you! You better learn something about how you've been treating that book, art, blog or writing. And when you're ready, show yourself.

And bring chocolate. 

♥ ♥ ♥

This will all make sense shortly, but in the meantime, indulge me as I provide the backstory: so my household has seen its share of airborne illnesses the last few weeks. I will spare you the amoebic details, but the fact of the matter is that since Christmas, I've not spent one week at home without one of my three sons home sick with me or home sick on his own. What this has done for my social life: you don'twannaknow. I've had the frequent displeasure of canceling a lunch four weeks in a row. With the same person. Yes, we're still friends.

I'm back to feeling 100% now, so please stay the hell away from me.

Don't worry, I'll get back to love. Gimme a minute. 

I had an epiphany whilst in the throes of a bout and while it might seem rather pedestrian, it can't be ignored: life is for living and for me (and maybe you?) to be a successful (whatever that means -- it's all subjective, so play nice) writer requires we get the hell out. Ironically, I say all this at risk of sounding myopic.

Surely observations and insights from disabled or impaired people are extremely valuable, but for the overwhelming majority of the able-bodied, we must kick ourselves out of our relationships and dependencies with the everyday and kick up the dust in our own lives, and not let that door hit us on our way out if we are truly going to see results.

We must unfriend ourselves from Facebook, unfollow ourselves from Twitter and unwhatever ourselves from whatever other social media engine within which we frequently engage if we are to bring value to ourselves, our craft, and our readers.

I once challenged a writer to describe an approach to a barn door in 500 words. She couldn't. She did it in 300, which is good, because this writer has limitations when it comes to descriptions. Me? I love them, I get swept up in them and they are like poetry chocolate to me.

We must get out and step into the sunshine, squinting our eyes from its sobering glare in the dead of winter, bracing ourselves against the biting, life-affirming chill and wind which buffets our bodies and whips through our souls. We must take a walk to the pond near our house and when we arrive, we must take off our leather glove, the one with the cashmere liner and touch the massive alabaster rock; and run our chapped index finger along its veins of black coal and crushed quartz as our eyes follow the lines and then wander to the park bench with the flaking paint and rusty legs, barely making purchase of the nails and screws which fasten it to the concrete platform.

We must walk past the bakery with warm and salty aromas of fresh Italian bread, crusty and golden on the outside and downy soft on the inside, the air bubbles inviting our nubby and chilled hands to grab a chunk and devour it; when it's fresh-from-the-oven warm, it tastes better than with any amount of butter on it and the smell alone is an elixir to our souls.

We must pack up our cameras and make sure the batteries are ready. We must bundle up in our trusty pea coats to get into our old cars with seats of faded leather. Turn the key and wait for the engine to start, but turn off the blowers with their frigid air because the crank case isn't warm yet.

We must drive to the old weatherworn and abandoned barn in the countryside, listen to classic songs from Frank Sinatra or Doris Day on our way; keeping that timeless appeal so we transcend the moment in which we exist: 2013, to imagine the world we seek: 1958, so we can embody that lonely farm girl whose eyes linger a little too long on the moon and whose mind tickles the memories of her moments in that barn, with her beau now at bootcamp in Georgia.

We must go to fondue dinner with loved ones during "Restaurant Week," a local week-long program born from post-9/11 sadness and fearful diners when restaurants were shuttering hourly. We must laugh despite our reluctantly transplanted waiter named Nigel who was charming but inattentive. We must kindly ask his peers for water, use our debit cards to pay the check, and hesitantly walk to the car together, wondering what we will do next and then decide, as we approach the interstate sign, with Donna Summer playing in the background, chant, "Go north or go home!" take the onramp to the city, giggle at our spontaneity and feel like teenagers again for our collective recklessness. We must park the minivan, pretend it's one of our parents' car and venture out into the vibrant, windy and pulsing city, seeking tickets to a hockey game already in progress only to discover that once we pass the security check and the baggage search that that game is sold out. But we must decide together undaunted, to go to a bar around the corner, open a tab, have a beer and watch the game on plasmas strung along the walls. See the bartendress with four-inch hoop sparkly earrings scan her smartphone and watch the bar-back in the black longshoreman's knit cap restock the frosted pint glasses; his muscles stretch and contract beneath his t-shirt's rolled up sleeves. We must turn and have no choice but to watch an older man who confessed he was on painkillers and too much beer, dance with a sweet young thing fifteen years his junior, only to see him slow down a bit, get a little too dizzy and then see him maintain his dignity as he surrenders to his age and to the night as he zips up his hoody, walks up the steps and bids the bar goodnight.

We must do these things. We must get out of our own way, even in the face of love: lovers will understand when we need to do these things, to get away. If they are worth having around, they will be there when we get back.

The fact of the matter is that if I love myself, I need to break-up with myself and kick myself out of social media, and make myself take me out on a date, or for a drive, or for a walk, without the computer but only with my eyes and my memory. Same goes for my writing, my art. The only way to get anything gritty, good and new for my work and for my soul is to turn away from what I already know and look boldly into what I see out there.

Take a late-night romantic ride in a crowded car with some coeds here:
http://mollyfielddotcom.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/friday-fiction-6-the-car-ride-dream/

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