I have a day off from the office and I’m trying to savage my final draft like a drunken barbarian. The Project One manuscript ended at nearly 190K words, and that’s an awful lot for many reasons. It’s a big investment for a reader, not to mention a publisher. It also sets a precedent for future books, and that’s a writing pace I’m uncertain I can maintain. It feels heavy, both literally and metaphorically.
Amidst the edits, cuts, and barbarically setting the countryside ablaze, I came upon this sentence:
Tildy also noted that it was still as quiet as she remembered.
It tripped me because my brain registered “still” as a synonym for “quiet”. Well, if that’s confusing, does the sentence work without that unnecessary word?
Tildy also noted that it was as quiet as she remembered.
It does!
I wonder if I’ll be able to make similar cuts, the way I did here and here? A quick Ctrl-F showed 192 instances. Some will likely remain, but others will have to go. And then there’s this:
Well, that’s embarrassing, but a fine example of how difficult it is for a writer to be objective when editing their own work. If you’re curious, I deleted the first three, rewrote the fourth out, and kept the fifth. Only 187 left to go.
For more tips (and embarrassing admissions), we recommend these posts. Good luck with your writing!
–Mike
Enjoy what you just read? Leave a comment or like the post and we’ll ensure that you see more like this!
I’m sure some of that came from the societal stigma about showing vulnerability and my extreme reluctance to share personal aspects of my life. I think the greater issue, however, was the fear that such an admission would transform thought into reality if it reached the written page.
I wrote a draft of this post in mid-September after a rough couple weeks, when stressors and disappointments had piled upon another. I’d found myself angering easily or venting frustration in situations where it wasn’t warranted. My novel always appeared to be the catalyst: not having time, not being inspired, delivering garbage when I did sit down.
It wasn’t the first time I’d had similar feelings, but these were more acute and my defenses were down.
My writing time was precious and I was wasting it, and this realization was eating me alive.
There’s a betraying voice in your head that suggests the simplest solution: Quit doing the thing that’s causing pain. Just walk away.
Because writing is the primary way I express emotion, my head started drafting a post along those lines. The admission hurt, and that feeling intensified as I fleshed it out, because it reflected the abandonment of something I’ve wanted my whole life.
I sat at the computer that morning with little optimism and a negligibly more determination. I didn’t want to write this post…and I told myself over and again that I was pretty sure I wasn’t quitting.
Then I happened to read the following passage I’d copied from a book, and my perspective changed.
“You have to understand his motivation,” Michael said. “A writer can spend years working on a book he isn’t sure will ever sell. What makes him do it?”
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
No joke, it was like a switch flipped. A flood of positive memories surged through my brain, washing away the dark thoughts that had taken root. I decided that, yes, I was going to write this post, but I wasn’t going to take the “woe is me, writing is hard” approach (if there’s one kind of writing I’m certain people don’t want to read – aside from advertising – it’s that).
And so, I used the Delete key many, many times to get the post you’re reading now.
Writing and telling compelling stories is hard, make no mistake about that, and with any difficult task, there are highs and lows. There will be a few black days, and sometimes you will feel crushed or trapped. There will be days where the lying voices are very convincing, but quitting does not bring the bliss they promise.
Writing this post was cathartic, though perhaps not at the intellectual level a person might assume. No – and apologies in advance – it was more analogous to vomiting up the thing that made you sick. You can wallow in misery, which I’d been doing for a couple weeks, or you can stick your finger in your throat and get it out. Our bodies are miraculous things. They know when something doesn’t belong, and it’s unnatural to fight that. Our heads are the same way. Intellectually, we recognize the blackest thoughts, even when there is little illumination for us to see that.
In closing, here’s another admission, though an easier one to share. I stopped writing this post at the last paragraph and set it aside for months. My purpose for writing it, a desire to lift my spirits, had been achieved. Rejuvenated, I immediately went back to writing and the following weeks were happier. I’ve completed it for your sake and mine. We might not need reassurance or a kick in the pants today, but on another day we will. And this post will be waiting for us.
Good luck with your writing!
–Mike
Enjoy what you just read? Leave a comment or like the post and we’ll ensure that you see more like this from Michael!
I used to do freelance resumé work, which meant I regularly visited professional job websites like LinkedIn and Indeed as a way to generate leads. It’s also a good way to learn how not to point out a person’s typos (it’s nothing personal – those darn things exist everywhere!).
When it comes to the hiring process, we’re all looking to put our best foot forward, make a good first impression, or follow some other idiom that makes sense here. Unfortunately, candidates and hiring managers are sometimes too eager to give their document one last review. Here are a few fun typos I’ve found and my made-up definitions.
CASUALTIES
Obsexsed – a person who really, really wants some lovin’
Scarnio – one of the weakest Bond villains
Opportunites – the best evenings for stargazing
Upfortunately – a positive turn of events
Transfernation – describes an emigrating person
Carer – one who attends your needs
Decuted – made ugly
Handeling – completing a messianic task before getting Bach to other business
Cross-crunctional – twisty sit-ups
Leeder – when Lee is in charge
Cowworker – the person in the cubicle next to you who has a straw bed and milking pail
CORRECT SPELLINGS
Obsessed
Scenario
Opportunities
Unfortunately
Transformation
Career
Deducted
Handling
Cross-functional
Leader
Coworker
A typo can be an immediate disqualifier for candidates and hiring managers alike (though an obsexed person might have an advantage in certain situations). Anyway, hopefully this post encourages you to take one last look at that content before you release it into the wild. Or better yet, persuades you to hire a proofreader, an investment that pays off when they advise you that really, really wanting some lovin’ isn’t the message you want to convey.
Good luck with your job search and your writing!
–Mike
Enjoy what you just read? Leave a comment or like the post and we’ll ensure that you see more like this from Michael!
One of the primary distractions from my writing is gaming. It’s a storytelling of a different kind, which I’ve enjoyed since I was a kid playing Atari 2600 or Apple ][c.
Ask your parents. Or (sigh) grandparents.
Like literature, it’s a media not immune to typos, but it also provides human interactions. So, between in-game chat, trash talk DMs, and the game itself, there are plenty of opportunities for unusual spellings.
Here’s some I’ve encountered recently, humorous definitions added.
CASUALTIES
erans – the movement a man makes when a Flock of Seagulls chases him so far away
carectors – a steel building set that fosters empathy
campain – the result of pitching your tent on tree roots
spone – the complementary utensil to a fark and knive
dushbagg – the container in a vacuum that catches all the bits
waisted – when a weight gain causes you to stretch out your pants, but they’re still comfy
ingadging – adding a new indicator to your car’s dashboard
opstickales – the goal of a secret tickle mission
outgone – when you’ve really left
CORRECT SPELLINGS
errands
characters
campaign
spawn
douchebag
wasted
engaging
obstacles
outcome
A proofreader or copyeditor might just be the NPC your game needs before release. Unfortunately, they can’t help you with your trash talk.
Good luck with your gaming! And writing!
Mike (Xbox Live: MikesDemons)
Enjoy what you just read? Leave a comment or like the post and we’ll ensure that you see more like this from Michael!
My younger son, Benji, is nonverbal and autistic. I don’t share it much because one of my primary responsibilities is protecting his dignity and privacy. And it’s usually not relevant to this site. But like any person important to you, his influence is always there in my writing, nevertheless. In this post I’ll share one of the ways my craft has changed because of him.
Ben has a limited vocabulary, though his communication includes expressive gestures and sounds, not just words. In talking to us (people who clearly are too dim to understand), he’s practically speaking three languages, and often, more than one at a time. It’s not his problem when we can’t figure out the translation; it’s ours.
To an outsider, however, it might create an uncomfortable situation. Not because that person is a bigot who despises neurodiversity, but because they are walking in unfamiliar territory. I liken it to me meeting a Black man for the first time (in my memory, he looks like actor Brock Petersin his Star Trek days). I was just a little kid, terribly shy around strangers, and before me stood a person so completely unlike every person I’d known in my secluded little rural town. At least, that’s the lie your brain tells you. In every aspect that I could see except skin color, he was like my neighbors.
I hadn’t been taught to hate or even dislike Black people; I just had some unintended bias to push past because my world was filled with people who looked like me and had basically the same beliefs and ancestry.
It’s one thing to know there are a variety of people in the world. Seeing them is another. Further still, interacting with them changes your perspective in significant ways. Watching Black people on TV wasn’t the same as meeting them. And meeting one certainly wasn’t the same as having people like him in my daily life.
I choose to believe the same lack of experience is true for people who aren’t sure how to react around Ben. It could be uncomfortable at first, but the smallest effort by them can overcome that. I don’t think they can do it alone, however. As Ben’s father, I believe one of my responsibilities is to help people with this, which also helps him.
Now, I grew up as a Boy Scout and I’ve always cheered for the underdog. I’m predisposed to helping others and recognizing those who are disadvantaged. But there’s a distinction between that and being an advocate. Believe it or not (sarcasm), there’s a difference between adding a rainbow frame to my Facebook picture and standing up to LGBTQ bigotry when people post it. Advocacy requires deliberate action, and I can help by leading through example, by sharing posts like this, and by injecting it into my books.
At a recent happy hour for a departing colleague and friend (aka Trusted Reader #3), the subject of my writing came up several times. I’m at the point where I enjoy this more than I once did. Part of it is comfort, part is the practice of refining my synopsis, and part is knowing more about the story and what I’m doing as a writer.
I’ve written about the difficulties I’ve had hereand here.
As stressful or scary as this might feel, it’s an important part of the writing process. Even if you never want a person to read your writing (which I consider a shame – share with us!), it will help you as a writer.
Sometimes….you might just plop gibberish upon the page.
When I’m in the zone, I type around 100 words per minute. That’s not elite status, but I’m definitely moving. My brain, however, is processing the story much faster. Passages aren’t necessarily being fed to the page in order, and oftentimes, sentences aren’t landing with the words in their intended sequence. It’s a bit of a wires-crossed thing that requires some adaptation, patience, and editing.
An unfortunate, though sometimes hilarious consequence, is some serious gibberish. Although it breaks my rhythm, I usually delete these things immediately because they’re too horrid to live on the page another moment. However, since I started this series of Casualties posts, I’ve decided to save some of the better ones as examples of just how wrong an experienced writer can go.
As always, I’ve created some definitions, and the correct words (if I’ve deciphered them) follow that.
CASUALTIES
Hiuefully – a well-saturated color
Initiatititive – making the first move on a sexy date
Tjamls – beasts of burden that tjaverse the djesert
Habyart – a question posed to the entrants of rural art shows: “Habyart?” “Yessaidoo!”
Consticuous – something stuck to the wall and definitely out of place
Priviledge – born with the right to stand upon the precipice
Viluminous – an evil glow
Predigestion – what happens to chewed food slathered in saliva
Predamentary – the basics for stalking prey
Harbordence – a thick fog hanging heavy upon the docks
Trhaventily – seriously, I got nothing here. A flower? A kind of fancy silk lace?
I started working on Samor’s new story in December 2019. It’s been a journey of considerable challenges and delights. Some things have gone very well. Others, hmm, not so much.
Part of my writing process is reflection. I regularly look back at what I’ve accomplished. I think it’s a critical step because writing a book is a difficult journey filled with self-doubt. When your energy is low or your mental defenses are down, abandoning a draft can feel like the only viable option. But take heart! Energy always returns. Defenses are rebuilt! Reminding yourself of your good work will replenish your creative tank.
Here’s a list of ten accomplishments and discoveries of the last twenty months.
Today’s list provides a selection of words that didn’t quite capture time in a bottle. And unlike a broken clock that is right twice a day, these are far from correct.
As always, the fun fabricated definitions are followed by the correct spellings.
CASUALTIES
Prenature baby – a baby born before it is naturally possible
Birday – celebrating the occasion of a person’s bir
Tottler – a toddler who doesn’t drink; see also “teetottler”
Threnty-something – the approximate age of a person between their 20s and 30s
Jerryatric – a mental condition that causes an older person to identify everyone else as an old acquaintance named “Jerry”
Senior cilizen – term to describe a retired comedian
Ageles – Enrique Iglesias’ real last name
Immorttel – a phone company for those who live forever
CORRECT SPELLINGS
Premature
Birthday
Toddler
Twenty-something
Geriatric
Senior citizen
Ageless
Immortal
Consider this post an ironic example of how typos can waste your time unless you have a friendly neighborhood proofreader at hand. Good luck in your editing!
–Mike
Enjoy what you just read? Plenty more Word Casualties here.Leave a comment or like the post and we’ll ensure that you see more like this!
December 10, 2020 marks the five-year anniversary of this writing project, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to recount a year in a writer’s life. There’s probably a joke to make about celebrating the “wood” anniversary for a book, but I don’t have much in the creative tank tonight.
For many of us, 2020 friggin’ sucked. We’re living through trauma, and so many things made us sad, stressed, or depressed. I write because I want to bring joy to other people, and it was damn hard to summon that joy to the page this year. My emotions ran the gamut, from grief to anger to fear to outrage.
We lost some key figures from my childhood (David Prowse, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Trebek, Sean Connery) and my adulthood (RBG, Chadwick Boseman, Ian Holm)
Pandemic….well, everything, including anti-maskers who I just don’t understand
I started working from home (for what will end up being more than a year)
Watched my city, Minneapolis, descend into chaos after the murder of George Floyd
We had my wife’s teaching role and my younger son’s special education turned upside down by the pandemic
We watched two people younger than us succumb to cancer
My wife was in a car accident that sent her to the ER and totaled our older son’s car
And for crying out loud, so many Presidential shenanigans
But any day I can write one word is a good day, and there were plenty of days that exceeded that. I did make some good progress. During the research for this post, I discovered that I accomplished more than I suspected. Here’s a few highlights: