I am a Writer.

I said in an earlier post that I have trouble reading. It’s probably due to the fact that I’ve got A.D.D. I just can’t focus on a stream of written words. My eyes jerk from word to word and I don’t read nearly fast enough for my attention span. I like audiobooks. I can listen to an audiobook while I’m at work, or walking, or playing a videogame. The problem with that is that one of the best ways to get faster at reading is by doing it, so it’s a constant struggle against myself to get through a written work.

This problem, for whatever reason, doesn’t carry over to writing. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m editing as I go, constantly keeping track of my spelling and grammar as well as the actual content and how to best display it on the page. Layout is far more important than most people think. I have a friend who is fond of saying “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” If this is true anywhere, it’s true in writing.

My writing (especially my fiction) suffers from my lack of reading actual books. There are things which you learn from seeing it done and mimicking. Because I don’t see the way other people write as often as I otherwise would, I have no idea if I’m doing something wrong, or at the very least, unorthodox. I do, however, have certain personal preferences. I like to keep my paragraphs short, not only because I jump from topic to topic, but also because they’re easier to read that way. Big blocks of text are hard to get through.

I generally write to music. To be honest, I live my whole life to music, and writing is one of the things I do. I am selective about the music I listen to while writing though, and I make sure it fits the tone of what I’m writing. On a very rare occasion I will even turn the music off if a scene calls for silence.

I used to write everything on paper first, then copy it into the computer. While I still do this on occasion, I’ve gotten into the habit of writing almost entirely on the computer. When I don’t have access to a computer, I’ll scribble notes, sentences, even whole story segments on whatever scrap of paper I have at hand, but the pressure of the modern age has made me realize that writing on a computer is just far more convenient, though sometimes I do miss the feel of a notebook in my hand.

I especially love writing fiction with another person, taking turns creating a world and characters together. I’m great with characters. I can come up with characters spontaneously who are realistic, flawed, individuals. Where I have trouble is in getting a story to where it’s going. I seem either to rush through big events quickly, because I know what the main elements are and how the characters would react to them, or I dither about wasting time until one such event occurs. Living life isn’t something I write very well. "She gets up, she showers, she goes to work, she goes to the library, she comes home". I mostly end up inside my character’s minds during these times, but there’s still something missing.

My main problem is not wanting to give anything away. Because I write primarily with and for another person, I like to keep things back, even when I have the secrets and mysteries figured out, I like to make them hunt for clues, which doesn’t work so well if you’re writing for a reader, who can’t affect the flow of events, rather than for a collaborator, who can.

My stuff is good, but not great, and it tends to be rough. I have noticed that editing (as with anything else) is becoming easier for me with practice. Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve done edits on every piece of writing I’ve done, and the quality is improving already. Maybe I’ll post some fiction eventually, but for now I’ll keep this Blog in the Non Fic arena.

If anyone out there has advice on how to set up an outline, or any other advice really, I’d be glad to hear it. I’ve heard advice from some of the sci-fi greats, and also the masters of podcasting, and if I’ve learned anything it’s that all advice about writing should be taken with a bucket of salt. Everyone’s process is different, and no one has “the one way that works”.

By the way, if you are a writer, and like to listen to good advice, I highly suggest checking out Mur Lafferty, The Dead Robots Society, and all the goodies which surround the podcasting universe.

Thanks for reading,


-Step.