Learning through Experiencing, Helping

     I finished Stephen King's Cujo a week ago, which pushed me to start The Dead Zone, another novel written in his glory days before his freak accident, being hit while walking along a road. Another novel on my upcoming list is John Grisham's The Firm, which I am very excited to read. This past year has included the most novels that I have ever read, but it's all for good purpose.
     Today, another author asked me to read a shorter piece of his. It was something different, an adult romance, and I gave it a good two hours of me commenting on it and making note of where conflict and scene goals are missing, something I myself have been missing through drafting and creating in revision.
     And that's today's focus. Reading keeps the mind loose, the muse churning even when a writer closes up shop for the night. Like artists, we writers duplicate what we like from genres and writers we love. We throw out what he don't love, and that's that. Is this necessary for one to be a writer?
     In a word: yes. Reading is just as important to writers as being bothersome is to a cuddling cat. The words we peel through in a novel, poem, or short work are what reload our own craft. Think of it like driving a car running purely on electricity, as cars these days tend to do.
     You wouldn't fuel an electric car with water. Student writers try to do this by putting a piece off until the night before it's due. You wouldn't stare at the car and say you were driving it, yet young writers say they write when they actually only think of writing. Who does that?
     A few friends and I had a good laugh, when one learned that a person he knew wrote in a genre he had never read.
     Plain as the sun beating down on Death Valley, writers learn, grow, and feed in their craft by reading, writing, and assisting others through the process. Of course, meeting others and discussing writing can and should be a part of the work. Writing is solely not an activity for introverts. But the meat of what we do, repeated throughout the course of every writing reference you'll pick up, is gained by being a writer and reader.
     Go and find yourself a good book, and start learning.
    

Visualizing Success in Writing and Public Speaking for Authors

         I stand outside with my group of three peers, and we have less than five minutes to make something up. Reading the textbook, I ask my group what success made them think of. Sports, one says, so we talk about fighting and basketball. How do we visualize success, I ask. We stand under the buzzing light of a neighboring portable, thinking about it.
         On Thursday nights, I attend a three hour course on developing career and life directions. We've been discussing what colleges have been looking for, but public speaking came up this past Thursday, when we were told we would need to perform a short, two-minute skit in front of the class.
          Public speaking is the number one fear in the world, not spiders or HIV. On a daily basis, we put ourselves into situations that require us to speak publicly, yet our bodies begin to break into shakes and sweating when we're told suddenly to perform.
          As writers, we don't feel the necessity to speak aloud to crowds of people; our work is solitary. But that's not the truth, for writers are those who sell their books. Writers go to conferences to meet publishers, other writers, and working editors. Your publishers, I argue, do shit of that. We are put on the front lines.
          The professor assigned topics on what builds self-esteem. The professor put us outside in the dark lighting of a parking lot at eight, P.M.. He gave one group determination, another persistence. We got visualizing success.
          Visualization, thankfully, can be used in multiple situations such as speaking publicly and writing. It helps move us forward in our writing. We all start with one word, Stephen King says. One word leads to a sentence, which creates a paragraph after a while. By visualizing this or performing well in front of a crowd, we feel the difficulty of our crafts drop and our confidence rise.
          We're the last group to walk in when the professor presses the door open with his foot. As group one, we go first. We're standing at the front of the class, looking towards football players, adult students, coaches, and a champion softball player. Say your names, the professor says. I say mine first, and we move down the line. One breath. I think about the next, first word, and we start.
         Two minutes become five minutes, and our class looks at us with open jaws. One group gets up and leaves the room.

Writing: Getting Started

     Writing always comes off as a difficult, however, rewarding craft. Many youth and students start with the occasional class poetry, short stories, and the academic essay. College seems to focus more on proving your logic and arguments through a series of given evidence and background on the subject. Other classes, more advanced, of course, focus on the analyzation of modern literature, or even the bible, and its effect on the mind and society. These all are things people struggle with when it comes to school--let's not even get started with math--but how would a student even get started with writing? After having attended several classes, and working with students in the Writing Center on campus, it has come to my attention that there's the biggest question of all: "how do I even get started?"
    I started a new position at my College's Writing Center as an english tutor. A majority of the students who visit want assistance on grammar, punctuation, and simply to "just write the damn thing for me." Asides from my work, I spend my Thursday nights in a creative-writing class, led by John Brantingham (link provided below). John spends three hours with students, including myself, to explain the writing process and mind frame of a writer; furthermore, the class forms into a workshop setting, where all students are required to show their best respect to others, be professional, or they will get a swift kick out the door. I can't help but imagine what would actually happen if someone was disrespectful enough. The class has many questions of course, and the students range from basic to publishing in their skills. He explains that Character, conflict, and desire are the three major points of story (Brantingham). From there, a student writer could move the story forward.
    Essay writers are less understanding when it comes to this idea. Academic writers don't want to jump in. They know that in order to construct a strong argument, research and good sources are needed. They are afraid that once they get started, everything will be chiseled permanent into a block of granite. If you tell them to just start, they will look at you as if you just dropped a cat several stories. Essays are planned to the bricks, while fiction is all about what happens next. So, what happens next? Just like John Brantingham mentioned, character, conflict, and desire are all very important. From that point on, in my mind, it's all up to the characters what they wish to do next. Let them run free; let them fuck up their lives. You as the writer must only show us what happens, and the characters are what drives this baby forward. If there's a murderer on their heels then show us how they hide in the closet with their sniffles projected past the door, and if they just lost their wife, well, show us how they fight against alcoholism and understand that they are better than that. Not only does this feel spontaneous, but it is spontaneous--that's life. Even with the use of CCD (conflict, character, desire), many argue that inspiration plays a big part--not so, says others.    
      In his book On Writing, Stephen King describes that "'read a lot, write a lot' is the Great Commandment [of writing]" (151). "I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie...I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not" (King 153). When starting to write fiction, the best way, that I've learned, is to just start writing. Start with the action or drama; start with the tears or fears; start with the arguments, but whatever you do don't wait around for your inspiration to save you. Matching that phrase from a popular video-game, the muse is a lie. Reading every day allows the writer to learn from others: the greats and masters. They play a role as your instructor, and can ease any misunderstanding such as how to write dialogue well. Writing every day allows the creativity to flow; with your mind constantly in creative drive, it's easier to write your next upcoming stories than waiting around for them to come.
     Of course, there are many ways for writers to get their stories down on the page. Outlines and plot summaries, with the assistance of research, help some while others keep away from the outlines like it's a rabies infected hornets nest--I choose the latter to an extent. In reality it's what works best for you and gets you working. Don't wait for the muse to sweep you off your feet; the muse is a gold-digging-hussy, only stealing your precious time. 

Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of The Craft--Tenth Anniversary Edition was used in this essay.

John Brantingham's website is http://johnbrantingham.webs.com/    
He also has a blog, here, at http://johnbrantingham.blogspot.com/