My Process of Writing

I’ve always been amazed at how much really needs to go into writing to make it good.  Long fiction especially.  The research alone can be a daunting task.  There are many methods, but only one has worked for me, and I’ve learned it through so much trial and error that I can sometimes get overwhelmed.

First and foremost is the idea.  What is the story going to be about?  And trust me, there are many many many ideas to chose from.  I’ve had two big writing failures in my life.  Most would try to tell me that they weren’t failures, one actually did pretty well.

Quality Content is King, We Proved It

There are so many people, on so many websites, clamoring for ‘help’ with blogging.  They all seem to be asking the same questions, “How do I drive traffic?”  And it seems like everyone always answers the same thing, “Write quality articles!”  But what exactly does that mean?

Obviously I can’t completely answer that question for everyone.  Here at ABN, we write whatever we want to write about, so I’m not sure this advice would apply concretely to bloggers that want to write about SEO or technology reviews, but maybe, just maybe, those that write those sites will gain insight into writing by my own experience here.

The Difficulty of Humor

Humor is an amazing little trait.  Its hard to say that its natural, when so many people work so hard at it, and achieve it.  But it does seem to be something that some people have naturally.  I personally have to work at it, just a tad, when I’m writing.

It seems that I’ve been writing far too serious stuff for me to calmly interject humor into just anything I write.  Which is sad, because I’m pretty humorous in person.  I partially wonder if it’s a thought process thing, since writing to me is so far removed from talking.  Both are quite natural to me, but this writing thing feels a bit different because its more of a monolog.

A Nice Little Forest for Photography

I love photography, I love going out and having sessions somewhere.  Finding landscapes that are truly wonderful.  I admit, that I’m not the best when it comes to shooting models.  But I’m learning, and I know I can still get great shots with perseverance.

For this adventure, Fall had just started, Lisa went over to her best friend’s house, and my step-daughter and I tagged along.  Unfortunately all the batteries for my camera was dead, so I used my fiance’s cell phone.

Where poetry comes from.

I was very good at creating from misery.  The loneliness of life in an empty house I was about to lose to foreclosure will do that, I suppose.  I always knew/believed that I would be better at creating while I was happy.

Indeed that assertion seems the case, but I find it hard to write those haunting poems I did before.  "The tortured soul always bleeds better on paper," as the saying should go.  Now all my poems are too mushy really share.  Even the erotic ones kind of lose their bite because the way they come off as all nice and stuff.

Addressing my current state.

I’m tired of spreading hate, and tired of having hate spread.  Its truly a shame when it hits so close to home, in a more than literal sense there.  I mean, I have such happiness in my life, but then as I’ve always know, when people see something that’s truly beautiful, they try to destroy it.

I’ve seen it happen time and time again, to so many people.  Everything is going great, and people just start picking.  There’s been songs about it, there’s been songs about the condition of people just having to cause drama to keep themselves occupied.  I’ll never fully understand it.

To have a schedule.

Schedules.  Why are they so feared by some people?  I like a tad bit of order to the chaos of the day.  Its not like they are concrete things that cannot be flexible....

I enjoy my schedule, I am trying to be diligent with it, and treat this blogging thing like a job.  I try to make sure I spend equal time networking and writing each day, so as not to fall behind, or get lackadaisical.  But in the end, I still feel I’m falling behind in my own way.  I want to write more fiction, yet I think I write just about the correct amount of time with the blog.  Hopefully I can balance this out more soon, though I’m not sure how without spending yet more time here in front of the computer and away from Lisa.

Why I Use a Camera.

 Most people that know me, know that I do more than just write.  I love photography.  Somewhere along the way I got passably good at it.  Well, definitely not just somewhere, I know where I got it from, but still, this blog is more about what fun it is to get a good shot, and how I got them.

Remember to always get a good angle.  That’s the key.  There are many ideas about symetry and other things, and you always have to be conscious of that, but when it all comes down to it, the angle is always the key.

An Essay on Writing - Part 2/2 (Trial, Error, and Accomplishment)

(( Continued from Part 1/2 ))

I know that some planning is key.  Once upon a time, I wrote a short story that people absolutely loved.  So I wrote another, then another.  People loved the story, so I decided to write more of them for people.  Then a friend of mine said, “You realize your main character changed names?”

I remember writing the stories and thinking in the third, “Its time to give this guy a name.”  I thought I had written the first two stories trying to keep everything nameless, but after rereading it, I didn’t.  In fact, other details changed, like eye color....  It was my first time trying to write a series and realizing I need an Outline.  So I went back, reread those stories and took tons of notes along the way.  Then I went back and rewrote the first two stories, and started to conceive and plan the rest of the series.

An Essay on Writing - Part 1/2 (To plan a story)

How far should one go to create a backstory for a novel?  There are so many examples of how far some people have gone and its so hard to choose the distance one should take.

In my fantasy novel, I am currently writing, I knew I had to create a new world.  I then narrowed down that the action will take place only on a specific continent, so I mapped that out and just kind of glanced over some interesting places the characters were going to visit.  Then I had to try to figure out what kind of fantasy it was, did it have dragons, did it have griffins, or was it just like earth, with no real fantastical creatures?