Thursday, September 17, 2015

How to stay MOTIVATED!

Motivation is the driving force for success.  Nothing important that has ever been done was accomplished through an unmotivated person.  I'm sure there are just as many moments in your life as there have been in mine where you did something, changed something, threw caution to the wind, etc, because something motivated you to do it; maybe a girl or guy that you liked, maybe it was the picture of someone you wanted to be like, maybe it was a powerful speech made by a hero or someone you looked up.  Whatever it was, it got you to do something that, at that moment in time in your life, was above and beyond your norm.

Now, motivation is obviously a personal and relative term.  What may be motivating to one person will not motivate another and to another it may have the exact opposite effect.  For example, I love fitness.  I couldn't give a number of how many Youtube video's of my bodybuilding idols I've watched to learn how to workout or to just motivate myself to go to the gym.  Yet there are people that I know that when they see that kind of dedication and physical accomplishment they think, and tell me, "I'll never look that good, so why go?" or "I could never look like that, so why try?" or they are just overwhelmed by the figurative mountain of work that they would have to climb to achieve a relative equal amount of success in their personal lives.

Your success will never be theirs, neither theirs yours.  You have to want it for the right reasons.  You have to find what motivates YOU and make the changes necessary to allow that motivation to take hold and affect your actions.  Losing motivation is one of the easiest things to do; in fact, it can happen when you don't do anything at all.  And that's why it's so dangerous.  Motivation requires constant nourishment; it will die, unquestionably, if you don't feed it.  Find what motivates you and then research everything there is to find about that thing.  If its music, search every music player available and every artist to find the songs that you can listen to to keep you motivated.  If you need motivation in fitness, don't expect a memory or thought of your idols to keep you motivated; hang a picture on the front of your door so that every time you leave you are reminded of what you are working for.  If you're like me and need motivation for writing, you need to fall in love with your story again and again and again.  If you don't love it it's not worth your time.

When I began my first book I had no idea what I was doing.  It was a few paragraphs over a page or two in a Word document and my brother just so happened to come across it.  He read it and he liked what he read.  He was sincere when he told me that I should expand on the story and keep writing; he actually wanted to see where it could go.  That was my motivation in the beginning.  Now, it did/does help that one of the main characters is based on him.  However, that was my motivation.  Now, along with him, my motivation mainly comes from my story.  I WANT to find out what happens, I get excited when I start journeying to new places in my world that I haven't really ironed out completely the details.  I love writing and having my story come to me as I stare at the screen, an actual story unfolding before my eyes filled with what I have created.

You have the potential to not only be motivated but to motivate.  Find whatever it is that motivates you and never let go of it.  Seek it out, learn everything you can about it and you'll see great things happen.  One of my most inspirational idols and personal favorites, Arnold Schwarzenegger, once said in a motivational speech "Don't be afraid to fail!".  I second that.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Note keeping is KEY!

Note keeping, in my experience, has been vital to my story and helping it progress while keeping track of the important details, both large and small.  With fiction, I would say that most of my story comes to me while I am away from the keyboard so it has been extremely helpful to keep detailed notes on what comes to mind so that I don't forget any of the details.  I have a section of notes on my phone and iPad and on my computer in many different Word documents.
You may find, like myself, that you don't end up using all of the notes that you take down during any given period of time but what I have found is that while I go over the notes that I have taken more ideas flood into my mind and help me to create, sometimes, an even better idea/story line that I like more.  Much of the notes that you do take may never be put onto paper or into your story but they will always affect what does get put down.
Look at it this way, notes are the refiners fire to a story...in a sense.  They can help you, as you read through them, smooth the edges of characters that you aren't fully sure of what their persona will be like, how their personality will come across, the reasons behind the many, many action of all of the different characters in your story, how the world will work...whether it will be more or less similar to other books of the same genre, and even your writing style.
Take careful notes when your story decides to give you small clips in your imagination; more often that not it will be for your story's betterment.

-The Fit Author

Friday, July 31, 2015

Creating Unique Characters

Creating UNIQUE characters has been my biggest concern while writing the Twin Legends series.  There are so many characters from the many books that I love, characters that have kept me up all night so that I didn't miss out on their adventures, that I fear that, even unconsciously, I may end up replicating them within a new name in my own story.  I cannot stress enough how hard I have worked to keep this from happening; no author wants to find out he's done nothing more than steal an idea that was not his own...no good, true author at least.
There are a few different ways of keeping characters unique and different, and certainly more methods than I know and will mention in this post.  The one that I implement the most is to base my main and more recurring characters off of actual people that I know (Depending on how alike you make them, you may want to seek permission!).  This will help in a few ways:
  • Each character will have unique characteristics already
  • You will avoid having the same tone for each character*
  • Creating unique personalities can be difficult, especially when you have dozens of characters throughout your story that all need their own uniqueness.
  • You may find it easier creating antagonists and protagonists for the story, depending on who you use
Certainly there are more answers than these, for perhaps good and bad, but these are the reasons that I focus on.

*Having the same 'tone'
A tone is the voice of the author in his writing.  To relate it to speaking, it would be an accent someone has based on where they are from.  One of the inherent pitfalls of creating everything yourself is that you think the same way, you write the same way, you have your favorite word choices, etc.  Attentive readers can see an author's tone and, when that happens, they start to see the characters as 'the same but different'.  They notice that different characters from different backgrounds use the same words, speak in the same way, or have the same reaction whether good or bad.  They seem generic, different but with evidence of the same creator.  To relate it to something more tangible would be different pieces of artwork created by the same artist.  Perhaps the paintings are different, with different colors, yet the way the artist painted them was the same.  He only used up/down strokes on each piece and his balance of primary and secondary colors remains the same. These subtle hints are like the signature at the bottom, proving they were made by the same person.

Another method I am soon to try is make a list of different characteristics, separated into categories like physical characteristics, alignment, personality, etc,  and drawn at random to complete a single person.  READ and expand your vocabulary to make each character that much different; utilize the synonym edit option on Word to find different words to say what you want to say.

The very best example that I have ever read of this would be The Legend of Drizzt: Homeland.  The characters in this book have a very clear and definite difference about them, despite being similar on so many levels.  Its a story where you are drawn to the characters and it is obvious how different and unique they are.  If you pay attention to character uniqueness as you read this book, you will not be disappointed.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

An Expanding World

Every author who has ever written a fictional novel has faced the trial and daunting task of creating a world wherein to place his characters.  More often than not this trial begins with the creation of a single place, a single event, sometimes even a single character or detail of surroundings.  That's the easy part.  Where the trial really begins is expanding that world outward, to create a unique and never-before-seen world that will draw the reader in and paint a picture so clear that the reader can see, through the author's writing, the world in their mind.
One of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome while expanding my world in Twin Legends was to create places and cities and panoramas that were truly unique and unlike those of my favorite books that had dragged me into the realm of fantasy and adventure.
So, how do you do it?  My experience has been that, with time and much thought, your world will naturally expand on its own.  It will seem as if the world, in your imagination, is creating itself.  In my mind its as if my unconscious worked on my world while I was doing other things and those times where I thought about my book and consciously tried to expand it, those ideas gave my unconscious parameters and guidelines to follow.  I remember one day I woke up and had these new, exciting ideas for my story that I had never thought of, neither were they similar to anything I had read before.  Many great authors have said that as their stories progressed, it seemed to them more that they were following the story than creating it, that it played out in their minds and they simply wrote down what they saw.  However great or mediocre my story may be, I can say that I have experienced that thrilling experience of simply following my story rather than feeling like I was creating it.
So, as you think of your story and as your unconscious works on it, WRITE DOWN the ideas that come to your mind.  After days, weeks, and more likely months, you will be able to look over all of your notes and see a graveyard of ideas.  Some will fit and some won't...and that is where the author truly shines, resurrecting those ideas that bring the story together, leaving other ideas alone, and changing others that didn't fit at the moment but can be altered to fit in the future.
Creation is a process and patience can never be overstated.  No story has come together in its entirety overnight; neither has any great novel been sent to the printing press in its first draft.  Ideas and storyline evolve and that is to embraced, not criticized.  During my revision after I finished my first book, I deleted entire chapters.  The storyline was still what I wanted it to be, but the way it was worded and some small details just no longer fit.
My last piece of advice is more of a continuation of a previous thought.  The best time for you story to expand and evolve is while you write.  Follow your characters, whether they be actual living characters or an alliteration of anything else, and follow where they go.  And they will go, whether you want them to or not.  I have had many ideas that I thought were good but alas, they never made it into the story because as I wrote my characters did something else.  And it always turned out better.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

What It Takes To Be An Author

In my opinion, the question "What does it take to be an author?" is by far one of the most under thought-out and unanswered questions of would-be authors and writers.  And I think that that is how it should be.  Personally, if I had known about the hundreds of headaches and migraines I would go through, the endless hours of editing and rewriting, the throwing away of good ideas that I fell in love with for greater ideas, and the writer's block that so frequently beset me, I don't know if I would have started the journey to becoming an author and bringing my story to life.

So, what does it take to be an author?  It takes loving your characters/idea/story enough to go through all of those trials and keep writing.  Writing, after all, is the key.  Your characters can progress in your mind, they can learn and grow, can go on adventures and have fascinating experiences, yet if none of that ever reaches paper (or your computer screen) then the story is left a dream in your mind.

 An unwritten story is a ghost without a soul; even the most poorly written story has a soul. –Jason Paull

Writing does not always produce the results that you want but it ALWAYS produces results.  These results, although frequently 'trash canned', get you in the mood to write.  I can't remember how many times I deleted entire paragraphs, even chapters, that I had just finished writing to rewrite them because by the time I was done I had already rethought how it should go.  As the story progressed in my mind and events happened and new characters made their way into the story there came a need to change what I had already written.  I would never had reached the end had I not started writing in the first place despite having to go back and change and rewrite the majority of my story.

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed. –Ray Bradbury

Monday, July 13, 2015

Learning From the Best

 There are almost innumerable tools to help writers/would-be authors in their pursuit of fame and stardom and, though I am nowhere near either of these, I have found one that is very suiting to my specific situation.  The other night, as I was thinking of ways to motivate myself to start back up where I left off in my second book of my series, I decided to start rereading, for the 3rd time, R.A. Salvatore's first (chronologically) book in The Legend of Drizzt series, Homeland.  I went to Amazon and saw that most of his books have high 4 star ratings.  To me this book, and all the others in the series for that matter, should be 5 stars.  So I started reading some of the reviews, looking for those reviews that gave below the average 4-star rating, to see what someone could possibly dislike about the series.  This helped me understand where some, albeit a small percentage, of his total fan/reader base are coming from when they rated his books lower.

Some of the specific questions/concerns I had were:
  1. How did a character born of the most evil and sinister race ever created, in a city where no good ever happens, where sin and deceit and murder are silently applauded...how did this character grow up with morals (something not found in almost any other of the characters race) and virtue?
  2. Why wasn't the character's morals and virtues overcome over years of indoctrination where those same morals and virtues were destroyed in every way?
  3. How could a character, so different and full of opposing views, make it out alive in a city where the weak are killed for no better reason than for the joy of the killer?
Now, first of all I wish to say that my book (soon to be books), are of the same genre and style as R.A. Salvatore's, so these specific questions/insights can be applied more easily to my books.

As an author I believe it is arguably relevant to realize that there will always be those who dislike what you write.  Everyone will have their own opinion and some will have opposing views completely.  Learn from those that love your work and learn from those that don't.  After all, the book you write is YOURS...yet we should all strive to make it the best it can possibly be.

Read reviews, both the good and the bad, of books that you have read that are similar in genre and taste to what you want to write.  You will learn what the reader, generally, wants.  You will learn what the majority loves about the story and what the minority don't agree with.  You will learn more questions to ask yourself and answer about your own story both before you start writing and during your writing as the story unfold on pen and paper (or a computer screen).

You would never go to war without studying your enemy and you would never make an alliance without knowing your friend.  Know your readers and they will show you how to please them.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

In large part our imaginations are formed by the imaginations of others before us.  Our imaginations differ greatly and to help expand we need to join others' imaginations.  To see the world, or a world, differently than how we view it ourselves is imaginative exploration at its finest, the fastest way to grow in ideas and understanding.  While thinking about this, there a 3 authors/writers that come to mind above any others, authors that have opened my imagination and intrigue, dragged me into their worlds to lose track of time for hours and hours without being able to put their books down.  These authors:
  1. R.A. Salvatore and his New York Times Best-Seller The Legend of Drizzt
    Image result for drizzt
  2. J.R.R. Tolkien and his New York Times Best-Seller The Lord of the Rings
    Image result for the lord of the rings
  3.  J.K. Rowling and her New York Times Best-Seller Harry Potter Image result for harry potter
These stories each bring an amazing complexity and air of adventure that are unforgettable.  I was introduced first to The Hobbit, the prequel to the future trilogy The Lord of the Rings while in 5th grade.  I read them all a few times before listening to my mom read Harry Potter to my siblings.  I remember catching bits and pieces of the story and wondering what the story was about; all I ever heard my mother read was about magical beasts and magic and danger.  It caught my attention and when I started reading the books I couldn't put them down.

These first two series really started to draw me into the fantasy/adventure realm of imagination.  R.A. Salvatore's The Legend of Drizzt, though, takes the cake.  I only have the first 20 books in the lengthy series (too few, I know) but I have read and reread them multiple times.  I don't think it would ever matter how many times I read them; each time I pick them up again I am drawn into the story just as much...so much so that I cannot put them down.  I find myself locked in the bathroom to not disturb others as I read straight through the night because I'm unable to leave the characters in their adventures.  Their adventures become mine.  R.A. Salvatore's writing is so intense, so detailed, so full of emotion and life that I feel, while reading, that I am reading about real people in a far off world.  I have never wanted a book to turn into a Hollywood movie as badly as I have for this book, though at the same time I would be hesitant because the acting would have to be perfect to adequately portray these complex characters.

So, this post is to give credit where credit is due.  Now, I do wish to clarify that my story is my own; no part of it is based off of characters, events, or places of any other story or book.  But these stories that gave life to my imagination helped me to grow my imagination in a way that I was able to create something unique and publish it...essentially bringing my own story to life.  So thank you R.A. Salvatore, J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling.

Forever a fan.

**The pictures are not mine but belong to those who made them.**