Lady Dae Writes

            I have to say that it’s not very hard to answer this question. I remember when I first started announcing that I wanted to be a writer. I used to get all kind of mean comments like, “Well you better prepare to be poor,” or “You better have a backup plan.” Now when people ask what I plan to do with my English degree or with my life, I don’t tell them about my aspirations as a writer. I just tell them I plan to edit novels or something like that. I don’t need that negativity.

            But it got me to thinking, why do I write? Well it’s certainly not for the money because if that were the case I would have stopped when that person, who happened to be a close friend mind you, told me I was going to be poor.

            Well, I was raised under the belief that if I do what I love I will be successful and I’ll find a way to make money. Most importantly, I’ll be happy.

            Happy? How can you be happy and not have money. Let me put it like this, when I told my mother I wanted to be a writer or editor and major in English, she was not happen. She thought I was wasting my intelligence because I have the brains to be a doctor or scientist. I hate science, but I’m great at math. But I’ve always been good at telling stories and I enjoy writing stories and making other stories better.

            Over the years, she’s tried to help me cultivate all sorts of talent because I’m the kind of person who can put little effort into things and be really good at it. Music? Not for me. Management and financing. No way. Teaching. Not in this lifetime.

            You see I’m good at those things, but you couldn’t pay me enough to sit at a desk and count money or teach. I just hate doing it. But I’ll write and edit all day for free just because I love doing it and that’s what it boils down to.

            I love to write. And it didn’t matter whether I was good or bad at it. Because I enjoy it, I put the time into it to improve my craft and make it the best, not just do it well enough to make money. And that’s the kind of motivation needed for this career. Anyone can write a novel, but not everyone has the will to do it and persist, even after being reject hundreds of time.

            My point? I’m going to continue to write just like I have been doing for the past ten years because I want to write. The law of the universe is that you get out of something the effort you put into it and with this much effort, I just know that one day, all these hours writing and on forums is going to pay off.

            Since I have so many distractions that I didn’t cover Friday and the fact that I was so distracted yesterday that I didn’t update my blog yesterday, I decided to compile a list of my biggest distractions that keep me from writing.

            1) The Internet

            2) Video Games

            3) Siblings

            4) Entire Family
            5) Lady Bugs (don't even ask)

            6) My Cell Phone (especially since friends like to come for me for counseling)

            7) Friends

            8) Star Wars

            9) Manga (especially the ones that I stay up till three a.m. reading and prevents me from updating my blog. Lol)

            10) Cooking

            11)The little things out of place (I mean a single piece of paper on the floor will drive me nuts in an otherwise clean room, but the room can be a little junky as a whole and it won’t bother me)

            12) School (I know. This should be a priority, but if I had a choice…)

            13) Sleep

            14) Reading

            15) Twitter

            16) My Employer (don’t ask)

            17) Musical Soundtracks

            18) Pokemon (this can be classified in video games, but I call it a whole different monster. Been trying to break this addiction since ’98)

            19) Watching Anime (could be classified with internet, but since I’m usually just sitting with the earphones in my ear, I separate it)

            20) Random Thoughts (Random Thought: Why aren’t the guys in real life as hot as anime and manga guys)

            So a silly post that reflect the fact that I am distracted right now and the fact that I stayed up until three a.m. reading manga and need a nice hot cup of coffee to give me a boost, but there’s no sugar.   Have a good day, while I go to war with distractions.

            Weird title for two things that seem the same but are different. But I tell people all the time that writing and storytelling are two different things and in order to be a writer or rather a novelist or fictional writer of any sort, you need both.

            This thought came from a conversation I had with my mom and dad. My mom said my dad likes to talk like he’s telling stories and that’s probably why I’m a writer and novelist, while my dad said that my mother writes and knows all that grammar and made me write all the time so she was to blame.

            I disagreed with them both. My mother doesn’t see much value in fiction and is just now coming around to it, while my dad doesn’t know the nuances of the English language so I said neither of them could write one right now, but my dad could probably write one easier and more interesting than my mother could.

            I’d love to give you examples, but my inner storyteller and writer won’t shut off long enough for me to come up with something that is so ridiculously boring but with good writing. So alas, I’m going to do my best to explain to you what I mean about writing and storytelling.

            To know how to write is that you know how to, well, writer. And though writing usually entails storytelling because you have to be able to interest and entertain a person to get them to read your story, to know how to write does not mean a person knows how to tell a story. Here’s what I mean.

            Let’s take for instance that English teacher who is a stickler for proper grammar and the technicalities or writing, but sees no value in fiction or writing for entertainment because it’s easy or has no substance. So you dare that teacher to write a short story. Chances are, though her story’s grammar and technical stuff is going to be impeccable, that’s going to be one boring story.

            Why? Well first, if she sees no value in fiction, chances are she hasn’t studied or read a lot of fiction to maybe pick up a particular style. Second, she probably loathes creative devices, and third, because she’s a stickler for grammar, she’s not going to count for the fact that not many people talk grammatically and perfectly correct. It just doesn’t happen. So this person’s problem is that she probably can’t weave a story. How do I know this? I’ve met people like this who degraded fiction because they were sticklers for perfect writing.

            At the same time you may have that person who is excellent at telling stories, but ask him to put that stuff on paper. The biggest problem you’re going to have with that person is organization. They probably won’t know that writing a story is different than telling it. You can’t do all the side notes that are done in telling a story in writing it down, nor will anyone be able to get through it to read it because this person is likely to just throw a story down the story without rules. How do I know? I started out that way. I was able to easily write stories, and I was always able to spin a good tale (for good and for bad), but I didn’t have the technical stuff. But considering I started writing at ten, I guess I was doing the best I could.

            In any case, you can’t have one without the other.

            The good part is it is pretty to easy to streamline storytelling so that you’re a great solid writer and storyteller and in fact, I think that’s just a talent that you’re just either born with or not. I don’t even know if there’s a way to teach someone to tell a good story unless it’s in them to tell it. But that’s my belief. Others may think differently.

            However, I won’t say that the storytelling craft can’t be learned. I had to perfect it as does everyone. But it’s either you pick it up or you don’t to me, which is like anything really. But alas, the point of this is, that everyone who knows how to write can’t write a novel and everyone who can tell a story can’t write a novel either. You need a combination of both skills in order for a person to write good fictional stories.

            I never really pondered this question as I already pretty much knew the answer. But it came back to mind when I was in one of my classes and a classmate who is almost done with her degree said this in regards to young people having time to not know what they want to do and switch majors a few times in their life. She was older, forty, and said, “Well, I really don’t want this business degree either. But it’s too late to change it now.”

            Naturally, I and many of my other classmates were curious and so we asked, “Well what do you want to do?” She answers, “Write. But it’s too late to do that now.”

            Since I’ve been writing on my own and teaching myself the craft of writing for nearly a decade, I was rightfully baffled. But we didn’t have the time for me to debate with her. Yet it got me to wondering how many people want to write, but have the misconception that they have to go to school to write.

            To tell the truth, I’ve learned more from writing forums and cross referencing on the internet, and although I think a degree in writing or English can help, that doesn’t guarantee you to become a writer and it doesn’t mean you need a degree to become a writer.

            Writing is one of those careers. You know the ones where there is no right or wrong way to do it, just general guidelines. It’s like this. There are general ways to run a restaurant but no real rules, but just three things to live by for success: Be clean, make the food taste good, and make money. The way the owner or chef does that is up to them as long as they live by those three rules. My philosophy is: if it works. Mind you a degree in culinary arts or something wouldn’t hurt or someone who knows business for those aspects, but to cook? Live by those three guidelines I say.

            Writing is like that. For success to be a writer, there are only a few rules and that is as such.

            Know the craft

            If you can make the reader want to read it, you are almost guaranteed for success. The way you get there is free game and all rules are welcome to be broken because they all have been at some point by somebody. All you need is the right alignment and there are many that are just right.

            My point? There are some really great writers who didn’t get a degree in some form of writing and there are some really great ones who got a degree. Heck, there are some really famous people who didn’t get a degree and I already did the google search for you. Just click here.

             But in any case, a writing degree isn’t a prerequisite for writing. That is unless it’s a book on some specialty as in you’re writing a book on engineering. That means you probably need to go to school for engineering first.

            In any case, no. You do not need a degree to write. All you need is a computer with internet access, a general knowledge of the craft, how to tell a good story and general knowledge of grammar rules to write a good story. A good beta or critique group can help with the rest. Getting it published? That’s an entire other monster and when I get published, I’ll be sure to let you all know.

          As for writing, just know you don’t have to go to school and get a degree in it to make a career out of it. It is a skill that can be taught, but above all, writing in combination with storytelling (because they are two different things) is a craft that has to be learned, and there are a million different ways to do so, and they don’t have to be learned at a college or university.

            My intention today was to compile a list of posts, forum links, and websites that explain showing versus telling after seeing the issue come up for the umpteenth time on the absolute write forums. But that’s going to take a while, so I decided to a post on plotting.

            Writers, particularly new writers, can very easily mix up story and plot. I did. A good story has a good plot, but a good plot doesn’t mean you have a story. Plot is the events that happen in the novel. But it’s easier to show you how this works that to tell it. So let’s go with that pretend story that would actually make a good story in the future when I’m not editing a novel about the girl who has to defeat the sexist maniac.

            That’s our story, believability aside, because it would take an alignment of all nine planets (Yes. I still say there are nine) for something like that to happen in real life and an outright crisis. But believability, crisis, and logistics aside, that’s what the story is about. It is going to be centered around Kiana rebelling against the even sexist maniac and nipping this problem in the bud.

            But just because we have a story doesn’t mean we have plot. If that’s your story and nothing happens to propel the story to coming to a resolution, whether good or bad, to this conflict, you have no plot. Plot makes the story people. So with that story in mind, let’s make a plot for it.

            1) Kiana rebels against the system: How does this propel the story? Well, it’s the inciting incident. The story wouldn’t happen without her rebelling against the system.

            2) Kiana goes on the run: Well she obviously can’t stay where she is. She has to go somewhere. If she stays, she’s captured, killed or made a sex slave and that’s it for this story. So yeah, that’s definitely an important event.

            3)Kiana finds shelter with a young man (he probably has sisters now that I think about it) in the city and he’s hot: How does that propel the story? Well, first of all, Kiana has somewhere to hide now. Second of all, the young man is the hot guy that Kiana eventually has a romance with, but that’s not important right now.

            4) Kiana’s rebellion spurs a nationwide rebellion against the system: Well, if her actions don’t spur rebellion, there is no story.

            5) Kiana has to flee again: With the hot guy in tow this time and where do they flee to…

            6) Kiana find the underground rebellion and they make her their leader: I have no idea what underground means at this point since I’m not actively trying to write this story and I don’t know how they come to the conclusion that she’s going to make a great leader, logistics aside, this is what happens!

            I’d be all day trying to plot out and speculate this whole story and if I do that, I may as well write it. Again, believability and quality aside, the above is plot. If those things randomly happened without the goal in mind of getting us to the eventual resolution to the conflict, it isn’t plot, just a bunch of stuff that happens.

            Plenty of stuff happens to me in the day, but if I wrote a memoir about my college journey, I wouldn’t tell you about how I went on a three week vacation unless it somehow had something to do with my college journey. Get it? Events don’t equal plot, plot equals story, and just because you have a story, doesn’t mean you have a good plot.

            If you still don’t get it, I’ll post more links on plot too. Until then, I have to go. Time to happily edit and write!

            Some things I don’t need the experience in. There’s enough information circulating on the internet about some topics that writers can write it convincingly without the experience. I’m twenty and never been married a day in my life, but I can spin a romance for married and unmarried couples pretty convincingly (tell that to the person who told me I couldn’t). And I certainly don’t need to become a prostitute or addicted to drugs to portray a character who is a prostitute or addicted to drugs properly.


          I know enough people, there have been enough documentaries, and I’ve read  enough pamphlets and articles that I can figure a lot of situations out, not to mention writers are pretty good at figuring out the psychology of people (meaning why people act the way they act in any given situation, which depends on a number of variables that I won’t get into) being that we have to make up and characters if we want to write stories.

            It seems like I would have already written about this topic since I write young adult novels, but I haven’t. So apparently a young adult novel is a novel written for young adults. That’s usually 14+, some would say 13+.

            The reason I like writing young adult so much is that it really is a crossover genre if done right. It’s very possible to appeal to adults if the writing is done right, especially the parents of teens who want to have something in common with their teens. But to be more specific, a young adult novel is a novel written from the young adult point of view in the voice of a young adult and just because your MC is young adult, doesn’t mean it’s a young adult novel.

            For instance Memoirs of a Geisha takes place during the adolescent part of your life for much of the book, but it’s not a YA novel because it’s told from her perspective looking back on the events that happened. So while the characters may be young adult, it’s the voice that makes it young adult

            Also, neither does the situation make a story for adults. Just because the MC is dealing with adult situations does not mean that the story isn’t YA and I had to fight people about this tooth and nail for a dark YA I wrote. The critters kept saying, that my story didn't seem like a story for YA’s. It’s too edgy. Look at all the stuff she’s dealing with. Well, that was the point.

          She was seventeen, forced to deal with things that no one should deal with really, but dealt with it like a teenager. She didn’t quite grasp the complexities of the situation she was in and dealt with it like a reckless teenager, a little raw around the edges, and got in way too deep, eventually succeeding in having a darn near nervous breakdown because she couldn’t handle it. Not to mention, it was told in a YA voice and tone and that’s what makes a novel YA, not the age of the character (though they certainly have to be eighteen and under preferably) and the situation.

            It’s like this. You can put and adult and a teenager in the same situation and they will see the situation and treat the situation very differently.

            Also, YA tends to focus on teenagers trying to find their way in the world, a story about finding their manhood/womanhood. They are usually going through a transitional stage in life. Not where they were, but not quite where they’re going to be.

            All in all though, there isn’t a set standard and the rules have certainly and almost always will be broken.

            So example of YA books? Too many to count and since I got into college, I haven’t read a novel in a while, not willingly anyway. But it’s certainly a genre that has grown in recent years. The most notable I can think of are:

            There are many more of them, but those are the more popular ones that come to mind. My novels are certainly YA and if you’re not sure, it’s ok. Read some examples, get some opinions and in the end, if you’re going the mainstream publishers way, it’s not really your call anyway. Usually this genre has a sub-genre, so pitch it as that.  For more info, go to my blog roll to the absolute write forums, or just type in YA. But the definition will certainly vary as does everything in the writing world.

 Since it’s the end of NaNoWriMo, I just know this is a question a lot of writers will be asking themselves. The goal of NaNoWriMo is simply to write 50k words in thirty days, not to actually finish the novel. If you finished it, that’s wonderful, if you’ve still got a couple of thousand words, that fine because undoubtedly you’re going back to read this manuscript and let me tell you, the 50k you write within thirty days isn’t always pretty. For some of you it might be, but for others… not so much.

Undoubtedly you’ve gone back and seen where you might have gotten a little wordy as a result of trying to meet that 50k quota, might be one too many adverbs, scenes you probably don’t need, characters you don’t need and a plethora of other problems.

That’s not to say you’ll have all these problems, but a few more than normal when there’s no time to go back through and edit a little so the draft isn’t as rough, time to go research something that you didn’t research before and just kind of took creative license within this month.

But this does bring out a concern. Is this just a novel that you wrote for NaNoWriMo to show that you have time to write and there’s no excuse for you not to write, or is this novel something that can actually be polished up and published.

Well, first you have to ask yourself, is it worth the time to polish up and publish to begin with? Do you want to spend the time doing so or move on to another project? There are many variables that factor into that decision. Is the idea overdone? If it is overdone, did I bring something new to the execution of it? Is the story there? Is the plot there? Does it have an audience? Actually, these are questions one asks anyway when writing a novel, but sometimes in our determination to take on a writing challenge, we forget to ask in the beginning of the challenge.

Since this is such a subjective subject, I’ll put it like this, if you’re willing to put the work, time and effort into polishing up the manuscript, getting the structure together and you sincerely feel that it can work, go for it. But don’t force yourself to work on something your heart isn’t into to work on. It’s okay to put it away, as long as you don't make a habit of it, because believe me, it's easy to fall into the habit of starting a story and not finishing it. Just because you wrote it doesn’t mean you have to polish it to publish it, at least not immediately. I have so many stories and ideas on my computer it’s ridiculous, but there’s only one I’m really focusing on right now (and is the bane of my very existence right now).

Anywho, since I’ll undoubtedly be doing my darnedest to be done with the final edit (note edit, I’ll go back and proofread one more time) by the end of December, expect me to talk about editing a lot as I vent my frustration onto this blog…