Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Trial and Error is one of my favorite writing books, written in the first half of the 20th century by prolific (and irreverent) writer Jack Woodford. It’s long out of print, but I recommend finding a copy–if you can.

I’ll occasionally add choice tidbits from the book to this post.

“The only people I know who possess the proper equipment for becoming a writer are professors of literature and literary critics–and they seldom write much. I am told this is a great pity.”

“If you have come to writing for anything but a desire to see your name in print and make some easy money without any work; if you have come to it with the determination to write and sell what you write, you certainly will–nothing but your own laziness will prevent you. No amount of stupidity will prevent you from writing to sell; no amount of ignorance. A total lack of inspiration will have, if anything, cash value for you as a writer.”

“Don’t go around asking writers where they get their ideas. You’ll embarrass and infuriate them. And don’t worry if you haven’t got any ideas; you’re far better off without them if you are going to write to sell.”

“Remember, nothing counts but the determination to write to sell; if you really have that you’ll get by–there’s not the slightest question of that.”

On Revision:

“If you get the revision habit, after you practice it long enough, you won’t be able to write even a note to the milkman, telling him you’ll surely pay him Saturday if he’ll leave another quart today, without revising several times.”

On Editors:

“Editors lose stories, spill gin on them, and burn holes in them with cigarettes. Technically, they ‘lose’ them; you’re not told about the gin and cigarettes.”

“Never try to pass judgment on your own work–let editors do it. They don’t know anything about good and bad short stories either; but they know what they want.”

“The cultured reader would detect only one essential difference between the fiction in slick magazines and the fiction in pulp magazines. He would find in the former consciously and intentionally bad writing, and in the latter unconsciously and naively bad writing.”

“A story is always a concentration to a given point–in this it resembles a waterspout: two vortices of opposite forces drawn toward each other until–hey presto! for a moment the thing stands whirring, fused, and, topmost pleasure, seemingly alive throughout. If you write something like that and send it to a commercial editor, even though it be a masterpiece, his reaction will be one of dismay and fright, followed by anger and suspicion.”

On Vocabulary:

“Whenever you catch yourself using a long word, one that would offend and afright the wife of a gas meter reader, truncate the word somehow.”

“If you have been to college, you already know at least fifty thousand too many words for the equipment of a free lance writer in the commercial fiction racket. If you have been to high school, you will know at least ten thousand words to many. If you have finished eighth grade at grammar school, you will still know far too many words for use in this racket.”

“Read only the magazines to which you intend to contribute; read only the kind of novels that you are going to write. Read them even if they gag and bore you to the point of desperation.”

On Sex and Writing:

“Because writers do not view sex as sin, they are reputed to be more promiscuous than most Americans, merely because they are less hypocritical and not inclined to sneak while about their ‘sinning.’ “

“The magnetism of sex has everything to do either with an author’s inspiration, or with his perspiration. Either can be work up to an astonishing degree by sexual abstinence.”

“[A sexually frustrated writer] is just diverting her temporary unspentness into another channel. She does so, of necessity, because she, too, suffers for a short time from the universal delusion that the transitive sex verb can take only one object.”

“Unless you are far undersexed, if you sit down to write the morning after a lot of sexual acrobatics, you will not write as well as you will when you are a trifle in need…As a general rule, in writing a novel, if you will abstain sexually for some time before beginning, and all during it, you will write a far better novel…But don’t carry the thing too far; and when you have your novel or stories done, for the good of your mental and physical health throw yourself into a sex ‘debauch,” if you can stand it and are not irritated and bored by it.”

On Ghost Writing:

“Ghost writers do speeches and every other imaginable material for illiterates and half wits who have somehow achieved notoriety sufficient to cause magazine and book publishers to feel that something ‘written by them’ might be unloaded upon a credulous public.”

On Screenwriting:

“The ideal motion picture is one that could be shot as a silent picture. Dialogue should be lagniappe.”

“If there is a story at all, it is told in action, and the dialogue is merely a decoration, and not at all the min thing. Action is movement that tells something.”

“It is the damndest job in the world to write a story motion picture length wholly in terms of actions; but if you can do it, and then after you’ve written add the decoration of brilliant dialogue, or even reasonably intelligent dialogue, Hollywood will have a place for you…an all around writer worth a lot of money to somebody and capable of entertaining the millions all over the world, instead of merely a handful of critics in New York.”

On Writing Novels:

“There is no form of creative fiction easier to accomplish than the novel.”

“For some reason the amateur, who ought to view short stories with fear and trembling, is afraid, instead, of the novel.”

“All publishers are simply miserable if they can’t cut something out of a novel. There is not a publisher in the Unite States who has the slightest faith in an author’s ability to write a better novel himself than the publishing house can write with the redactor’s blue pencil.”

“If you write one thousand words a day on a novel–and any dumb cluck can do that–you will have your first novel finished in seventy-five days, theoretically. If you can’t write five hundred words a day regularly, you’re hopeless; go do something else–you’re not fitted for commercial writing. Even a college professor of literature could write five hundred words a day, and there is nobody on earth more helpless facing writing.”

“Novel writing is a gamble, a downright gamble. But a fascinating one. It is never much fun to write short stories; but it is almost always great fun to write a novel.”

“And then one day the book is published. It will not occur to the publisher that you have the slightest interest in this fact, or the least curiosity to see what your book looks like in format.”

“Nine times out of ten your book will be the last one on his list that season which he had expected would do anything ; all of those he thought were going to make him rich will as usual have acquired creeping paralysis shortly after leaving the presses and gone into a coma on bookstore shelves. Your book will pay for all of these.”

“But remember, the average sale of a novel is eight hundred copies. I’m sorry.”

On Critics:

“Only by the barest chance will a majority of them feel that your novel has been written the way ‘it ought to be written.’ Only the very egotistical height of cold nerve could dictate such delineation on the part of a given individual who is colored in his judgment not by any Golden Mean of literary mensuration but simply by his silly prejudices, behaviorist bias, and complex matters surrounding his early environment.”

The annual Bulwer-Lytton contest challenges writers to come up with worse opening lines than nineteenth-century writer, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who opened his novel Paul Clifford with the famous words:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

The contest has grown in popularity and now receives over 10,000 entries in many different categories. Here are my own entries over the years:

Puns

• Sister Mary Theresa went to Mexico to clothe the needy, cure the sick, and feed the starving, but it wasn’t until after her first native meal that she truly became a woman with emission.
• It didn’t take Inspector Watkins long to realize the Case of the Confectioner’s Daughter was going to bring him nothing but truffles.
• Filbert P. Pistachio and his wife Macadamia considered themselves eccentric, but to their friends they were just nuts.
• To an orchard magnate like Jean-Claude, Sofia was the perfect woman:  eyes like two blueberries, cheeks as red as two apples, lips like two cherries, breasts as round as two perfect cantaloupes–to him, she was a portrait in pears.
• The nomads of the French countryside were famous for their corn and fruit, and were thrilled when they heard Marc Antony was arriving to show them how to grow more crops, but to their shock and dismay Antony’s troops immediately confiscated their harvest and Antony himself proclaimed: “French roamin’ country men, send me your ears; I come to seize your berries, not to raise them!”

Sci-Fi/Fantasy

• Star Command Captain Jock Steele stared at his new First Officer, Desiree Smithington, her blue eyes twinkling like the stars outside their spaceship did not, because they were in space where there is no air, unlike in the ship, except for in Steele’s lungs from which Desiree had taken his breath.
• Revulath decided to keep his day job, which, since he lived on the side of Antares V that always faced the sun, wasn’t that surprising.
• Lucifer sweltered on his throne, mopping his horned forehead with a sweat-soaked rag and thinking yet again, “Man, it’s hot as hell in here.”

Detective

• On stakeout with his young, brand-new partner, Detective Johnson quickly realized that “the lights were on, but nobody was home”–which was not surprising since criminals never worry about saving energy.
• The case ate at Detective John Martin’s gut like the week-old lasagna he had for yesterday’s dinner and which still lay in his stomach like an unemployed brother-in-law, causing him to chew laxative tablets like Pez and wash them down with shots of Milk of Magnesia, waiting for it to work its lumbering way through his intestines like a pasta and cheese spelunker–ah, but I digest.

Romance

• It was a dark and romantic night, and John stared into Monica’s moonlit eyes, which glowed like a pair of 500,000-candlepower searchlights, but without all the bugs, and they used a free sex near me to meet each other.
• Marguerite strode into the room, tall, elegant, and a real head-turner, now that she’d finally passed her chiropractic exam.

Mainstream

• Beth was a hearty woman who laced her speech with more curses than a longshoreman, though a longshoreman would probably use a word like “peppered” since “laced” sounds kinda gay.
• Slim pulled his horse to a halt, his throat as dry as the desert sand around him which seemed to be mostly in his mouth.

Writing

I’ve been writing most of my life, starting with a novella my sophmore year of high school–a work that, when one takes into account my young age and total lack of training and experience, might well rank as one of the most horrid pieces of fiction ever written (with the possible exception of this).

I write short fiction in most genres and non-fiction (technical, humor, political, and rants at technology) as the mood strikes. I’ve submitted close to a hundred pieces and some two dozen in both regional and national markets, usually for actual money. I’ve also been a bridesmaid a few times (no, not literally): a finalist in some contests and a couple of Honorable Mentions at Writers of the Future.

Recently, I finished my first novel, Miner Misfortunes, about an aging asteroid miner who discovers that the death of his friend was no accident and through his unauthorized investigation uncovers a conspiracy stretching across the solar system. To find justice, he must incorporate help from his quirky religious roommate, the camp’s beautiful but allegedly gay doctor, and a cat–a bank account busting “gift” from his vindictive ex-wife. Although Miner explores serious themes–technology vs. ecology, the role of religion in science, labor vs. management, and gender roles in an isolated environment–it’s written in a humorous, first-person style rather like Scalzi’s John Perry books or Jim Butcher’s Dresden series.

Here are a few of my sales:

Adrift: In January 2016, I sold a hard science fiction story to Baen books. To quote from Baen’s newsletter:

Adrift, Alone, but Not Afraid!

After three tours working to build satellites in low Earth orbit, Dan Colton knows just how dangerous the vacuum of space can be. He’s got a saying for everything, because when all that stands between you and certain death is the scant protection of an EVA suit, platitudes can save lives. After all, you can never have too much humility in orbit. But when he’s flung kilometers away from the satellite on which he’s working, in a suit with little power and less oxygen, all of the folksy sayings in the world (or out of it) won’t save him. Dan Colton will have to rely on his instincts, his training, and a rookie operator back at the station if he’s going to live to see another day, in this edge-of-your-seat thriller from Terry Burlison. Read “Adrift” here.

Air & Space/Smithsonian Collector’s Edition: Air & Space selected my article, “But That’s Why You Fly,” to reprint in their 2013 Collector’s Edition. The article chronicles my experience as a mission controller for the first space shuttle mission, STS-1, and discusses that flight’s perils and parallels to Columbia‘s final flight.

R.I.P., MOC: This is a non-fiction article I sold to Baen Books. It’s the story of NASA’s Mission Operations Computer and how a machine with less power than some modern wristwatchs once took us to the moon. (I also describe one of my own run-ins with the MOC, and how I crashed Mission Control at a key moment during the Skylab re-entry!) My thanks go out to all the NASA folk who provided such great information, and to NASA Public Affairs for the images.

Here’s an excerpt:

On a blistering Houston summer day in 2002, a legend of the manned space program retired. The ceremony took place in the Mission Control Center, where the retiree had labored tirelessly for nearly four decades. Few people attended. No cake or ice cream was served, no gold watch or plaque presented. Indeed, most NASA employees took no notice at all, because the retiree wasn’t a person.

It was a machine.

For nearly forty years, the Mission Operations Computer was the electronic heart of the MCC. The MOC, or “mock” as it was lovingly (and sometimes not-so-lovingly) called, drove the console displays and indicators, calculated orbits and trajectories, and enabled men and women to fly in space, build space stations, and land on the moon. It was alternately the object of admiration and annoyance, of fondness and frustration, but without it America could not have had a manned space program.

Here are some other space-related articles I’ve sold:

Columbia’s First Victims: The heartbreaking tale of the first people to die aboard the space shuttle Columbia, twenty-two years before she disintegrated re-entering earth’s atmosphere. A story of heroism and sacrifice, it proves that in the world of space exploration, not every hero wears a spacesuit.

Rendezvous: Check out this two-part article describing how to take two massive vehicles traveling at 18,000 mph and bring them together as gently as a bumblebee alighting on a nectar-laden hibiscus. There’s a reason it’s called “rocket science.”

It All Changed in an Instant: I’m proud to say I recently appeared in this New York Times Bestseller, alongside Dave Barry, Amy Tan, and Leonard Nimoy. Between us, we’ve won a Pulitzer Prize, received several Emmy nominations, and sold millions of books. While this wasn’t my wordiest effort, at least the editor didn’t have to cut much.

The Wittenburg Door Magazine, (“The World’s Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine”) published my humorous story, “The Second-Oldest Profession,” about the true origin of the Bible.

Air & Space/Smithsonian: My article, “But That’s Why You Fly,” appeared in the Smithsonian Institute magazine. The article chronicles my experience as a mission controller for the first space shuttle mission, STS-1, and discusses that flight’s perils and parallels to Columbia‘s final flight.

My Op-Ed article, “The True Cost of Exploring Space,” appeared in the Tacoma News Tribune, and again in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Who Died in Here?: My mystery story, “Just Passin’ Through” appeared in the mystery anthology, Who Died in Here? by Penury Press, a story about a young boy who discovers a dead body in the family’s outhouse. The book is also available from Amazon and was distributed to bookstores by Adventure Publications, Baker & Taylor and Ingrams. So feel free to order a couple dozen copies and/or call every bookstore in your state asking for it! This was my second mystery sale. The other was to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine a few years ago.

I am including on this page–absolutely free and at no obligation!–a few samples. Check the sidebar for links.